An End In Sight
by faceted-mind
Summary: Sequel to Trials Unending. After the trials of Antarctia and what followed for Remy, settling back into life at the mansion with Logan is proving difficult.
1. Chapter 1

Remy sat back against the cold concrete wall, feeling the chill wind that scrounged the open ground of the rooftop and whipped

Fic: An End In Sight

Rating: This chapter: PG, Full story: R in places. There is an NC-17 version available on the yahoo group "LoganRemy"

Summary: Sequel to Trials Unending. After the trials of Antarctia and what followed for Remy, settling back into life at the mansion with Logan is proving difficult.

Author's note (OF DOOM): OK guys, as some of you know, this has been sat in the back of my mind for about two years now. This IS the sequel to Trials Unending, and I totally understand if some of you don't remember that long ago.

If you haven't seen it and you fancy an epic, it's on this account. If you don't... well the story should still make sense. It should. :D

That said, my track record speaks for me - this may not be updated very regularly, but it is mostly on paper now, just not digital and not betaed.

Jukebox and Ross have both betaed this brilliantly, but they are not miracle workers and all mistakes are my own.

_-_

_The room was cold. Dark, blood-red eyes bored into hers and she froze still as a cold, cold hand slid over her breast and down her stomach. It settled over her hip and he leant over her with a threatening grin. Something shuddered deep inside her at the sight of that smile._

_"Are you sure about this, little girl." a squeeze on her hips, the grin turned lecherous. "Are you ready for this?"_

She woke sharply, tumbling forwards out of the dream and shocked to find herself upright. She gasped for breath as the feel of that icy touch melted away from her and left her cold and alone. She pulled the covers more closely around her, curling her arms around her belly and trying to hold back the nausea as the dream faded.

"No, no, no." she murmured to herself. "I'm not ready, I'm not sure." but the answer was long given. Too late to take it back now.

-

-

On any kind of team, you spend time getting to know the people you're working with - finding out how they function, how you can get the most out of each other. Whether labelled or not, 'team building' is part of every team's day-to-day business, in between whatever their main purpose is. Through team building you fall into roles, divide up tasks; you create an understanding of each other, a relationship of sorts - symbiotic. I've always loved that word. So… alien. So when something life-altering happens, when the roles fall apart - it's not unexpected for everyone to feel adrift. The symbiosis breaks down and everything suffers; the team and the goal you're working towards.

What's worst is that, after acknowledging all this, whatever happens, it's not me that lived through this world-shattering event. I'm just the team mate. Watching a man who's been a friend to me for as long as I've known him, and a man who has admittedly only ever been an acquaintance, struggle and fight through. Nothing I can really do but encourage and cheer and rally up beside them, and even as the eternal prankster my jokes are beginning to fall flat. I feel like my life has changed, in a way I never acknowledged when I was younger and the ice was taking over my body in such an invasive way, when the lives of the people around me were changing so rapidly too. Somehow it was all so much less then; less powerful, less relevant, less painful or worrying or saddening. Maybe it was just the way I looked at life back then - nothing seemed to really have any long term repercussions. Even if times were hard or I felt trapped, there was always the hope that the future would be better. Besides, after the first time you see a friend return from the dead, nothing really holds the same kind of threat.

But now Warren is facing the rest of his life grounded after Rogue left him floating in the North Sea and his retrieval put damaging strain on his heart, and Remy LeBeau, who'd never let anyone but Rogue and Ororo close enough to know him well, was abandoned in Antarctica; returned to us snow-blinded and scarred by frostbite. It's not worth even mentioning the damage to _his_ heart - after all, it was Rogue who left him there. Both of them, broken in a way no X-man has ever really been before. It's not me that's hurt, just secondary back-lash. But I'm sitting here wondering; if it feels like this for me, how must it be feeling for them?

-

-

"Creed." the mutant also known as Sabretooth looked up from the metal bunk. There was a man in a sharp suit stood on the outside of the metal and plexiglass cage. He didn't know him, so it annoyed him that the man used his name. And he had been starting to feel quite peaceful here, what a shame. "Creed, we have a job for you. Your name was mentioned in the pipeline as a very efficient mercenary, if a little messy at times. We don't mind messy. Messy works for us." Creed wondered absently who this 'we' was. There was only one man outside the bars, not even any guards with him.

"What have you got ta offer me? It's cushy in here - got all I need."

"Ah, we did think it strange that they were managing to hold you here. I suppose the offer of freedom isn't what you're looking for, then?" Creed snorted crudely. "Then let's offer you something that will interest a man who gets himself arrested by attacking a Boeing 737 at an airport."

Creed sniggered. "Someone said size didn't matter." he sniggered again. The man in the suit didn't smile.

"We're going to offer you a job which will be lots and lots of fun." Creed's eyes sparkled.

"My kinda fun?"

"Your kind of fun."

-

-

Bobby was watching. It was one of those pastimes that required a certain state of mind. But then, he hadn't been sleeping much lately, and that always pushed him into the semi-meditative zone where he could sit with a group of people and not need to be the centre of attention. Instead he could be perfectly happy working out exactly what was going on in the minds of the people around him. This zen state was helped, of course, by the truly dreadful romantic comedy that someone had put on before they'd all gathered and was burbling away to a room full of people not really watching.

He was sat in the corner with the best view of the screen, a seat chosen more for the principle of the thing than anything else, as he was probably paying it the least attention. Except for maybe Jean, who was fast asleep, draped across the arms of the armchair. Betsy was in the chair next to her, paying equal attention to the screen and to the piece of wall above and to the left of it. He was fairly sure she and Warren had been fighting before she'd come in; the winged mutant had been very tetchy of late, his restricted activities starting to grate.

The centre of Bobby's attentions was currently the three on the long sofa. Ororo had been watching when he'd first arrived, and sat down drawn by the thought of mindless entertainment on comfortable seats in a darkened room, but he thought it was probably Jean's choice of film. She was taking up one side of the sofa, more slouched than he normally saw her, with Remy leaning back against her shoulder. His head was turned slightly towards the television, but his eyes were shut. Bobby couldn't tell if he was listening to the film, or if he was asleep, but he looked almost boneless settled into all the curves that Ororo made. At the other end of the sofa sat Logan and it was his expression, as he followed the characters across the screen blankly, that Bobby was most intent on studying. It wasn't exactly Logan's standard viewing.

By the nature of Remy's position pressed up against Ororo, his legs had come to rest across Logan's and he stretched long-limbed off the end of the sofa. The move had surprised Bobby at first, when he'd looked over from studying Betsy, because Logan hadn't immediately pushed Remy away as he might have expected. Somehow, snuggling hadn't ever fallen into the fierce, manly and dominating persona he'd applied to Logan. And while they weren't exactly curled up close like Remy was with Ororo, he was definitely in Logan's space. He'd just grumbled something, and then shifted the other man's legs into a more comfortable position. Now they were all three just sat there, like that, and Logan had an expression on his face that Bobby just couldn't work out.

Something happened on-screen that made Ororo laugh out loud. Betsy sniggered into her hand, perhaps as much at Ororo's reaction as at the film, and Remy smiled widely. Awake, at least - Bobby acknowledged. Bobby looked over at the television and watched the unprepared father see his child enter the world. When he looked back - bored again - Remy's hand had settled across Logan's where it rested on his thigh. Bobby stared, both of their expressions still completely impenetrable.

Bobby would have surely come to the right conclusion, sooner rather than later, had an unexpected appearance in the doorway not resulted in Remy pulling his hand back so sharply, he thought he might have hit himself.

Warren stalked in, his shoulders bowed as if his wings were a weight almost too heavy to bear this evening. He paused in the doorway and hissed something that Bobby missed, but Remy obviously didn't - immediately on his feet and in motion.

"Hey Remy, just ignore him." Betsy spoke up. "We asked you to join us." Warren glared at her like a man betrayed, but Remy just kept walking, already halfway to the door. Bobby sat up in his chair, watching the events unfold with the same dazed awareness - not quite fully awake. Warren stepped into Remy's path, blocking the doorway and putting a hand on Remy's chest to stop him coming further.

"'m gettin' outta y' way, Wings. Jus' let me past." Remy said, only just loud enough for the room to hear. Warren seemed to think about it.

"Okay." he agreed, stepping to one side. He left enough room that Remy could get past, but not without knocking into his shoulder or the doorframe on the other side unless he turned sideways. Remy wasn't aware how small the gap was, and with his hand on the door to guide his exit, he couldn't help but push past Warren. He flinched but didn't stop moving, nearly clear and into the hall.

"Bastard." Warren hissed, wing coming up to catch Remy under the chin, throwing him back and onto the floor.

"Warren." Jean snapped, too late, as she was woken by the growing tension. Logan and Bobby were both on their feet and moving towards them.

"Don't you shove me!" Warren stood over Remy. Logan grabbed him by his collar and dragged him away and out towards the hall.

"Shut up Warren, and get out." Betsy added the verbal blow. Ororo was already at Remy's side as he sat up slowly, and Warren could see murder simmering in Logan's eyes as he released his collar roughly, throwing him off balance. With a dazed glance back into the room, Warren turned and walked away. Remy stood up and shook off worried hands.

"'s okay, I'm okay." he insisted, moving to the wall to replace the supporting hands.

"No it's not okay, Remy. Warren could have broken your neck with a move like that. This behaviour is simply not acceptable." Ororo was fuming, her cheeks heated with rage. Remy simply sighed.

"Y' done, 'Ro?" he asked tiredly, visibly sagging against the wall. Ororo echoed his sigh.

"Yes." she acknowledged quietly.

"'m goin' t' bed." Remy pushed himself off the wall and started out into the hall. Logan stepped up along side him, but he shook him off roughly. "I can do it, Logan. Merde. Back off a lil', neh?" Logan just stepped back, saying nothing. Jean watched the storm start to cloud his countenance, and she frowned, trying to understand. The man had become Remy's primary defence and sole protector over the last few months, and Jean wondered just what had brought out the protective nature in him.

Letting him storm off towards the front door and slam out into the driveway, Jean turned back to the forgotten film to find the credits rolling.

With a sigh, she wandered into the kitchen and started a big pot of tea. Whatever was wrong with Logan, he would solve it by going out and cutting loose for a while. Remy didn't have that option, so a cup of tea and a chat with her was going to do. She listened to the kettle boil as tyres screeched out of the mansion grounds, and put together a tray slowly, giving Remy a bit of time to cool off.

As she walked past the Professor's office she paused, her attention caught by Scott's voice muffled by the wood. She knew Scott had gone in earlier, but had thought that meeting had ended hours ago. The raised voices permeating into the corridor said otherwise, and she debated taking the tea in there and going back to get new drinks for Remy and herself. The voices fell quiet again, and she continued past.

They would work things out, whatever the disagreement was.

-

-

"It's not as simple as that!" Scott shouted inside the office, slamming his hands down on the desk. He was embarrassed almost as soon as he'd done it, and took the few steps back to his chair quietly with his head down. The Professor let him take his seat again before continuing. The position of his eyebrows told Scott that he'd found the outburst amusing, which didn't help his pride much.

"I think you realise it is, Scott. It is that simple. We have the tools, the staff, the resources. We have the space in the mansion. More than enough space in fact."

"It would be dangerous."

"For who, us or them?"

"Them… well… both."

"I don't think you really believe it would be any more dangerous than what we do on a day-to-day basis. As for them… well, nothing could be safer, surely?"

"I'll talk to the others."

"No. I want this kept between us for now."

"Secrets, Professor?"

"Just for now, Scott. Just for now."

-

-

Remy acknowledged Jean's knock with a grumble that might have been 'come in' or might have been 'go away'. She stepped into the room anyway to find him sat on the windowsill, straight-backed and pale-faced in the dusky colours that were leaking in through the window. She set the tray to one side and took a seat on the bed, the closest seat to where Remy was.

"Are you alright, Remy?" she asked quietly, reaching out to put a hand on his shin - just for contact, confirming her presence in all of Remy's senses. "Are you hurt?"

"Non." Remy drew a deep, stuttering breath and Jean realised with trepidation that the man was close to tears. "Jus' my pride, neh?" he turned towards her, and the rakish grin was full strength; might even have fooled her, if it hadn't been for that first unsteady breath. She let warm parental comfort float on the top of her mind and went back to the tray.

"I brought us some tea; thought we could have a chat. Things have been busy recently, and I can't imagine Logan is much good for heart-to-hearts." Remy chuckled, a rougher noise than she remembered, and Jean thought about pneumonia, and wondered if he was still smoking.

"Y'd be amazed."

"Talk to me, Remy." Remy turned his head again, his attentions back on the woods behind the house. With a sigh, he twisted around again and let his feet hang off the windowsill, accepting a cup from Jean.

"I make people so angry; even if they're on my side, they're angry." Jean thought about how Logan had stormed out of the house.

"Maybe…" she thought for a moment. Startled that she would even try to offer an explanation, Remy looked up from his cup. "Maybe it's part of your empathy. Making someone angry is part of the way you fight, right? Make them angry and they make a mistake, forget themselves, get tired… maybe it's just an automatic response when you feel… threatened. Your empathy kicks in thinking you're about to fight?"

"'d like t' t'ink I had more control ov' m'self dan dat." he observed dryly.

"You've never had perfect control over your empathic powers, Remy. You're shielded so tightly that you've never had to."

"But surely I'd know if I was usin' m' powers like dat."

"Would you, Remy? Really? If you'd just let me work with you a while…"

"Non, Jeannie. You know how I feel about dat." Remy shuffled back on the seat, unintentional movement giving away his discomfort. "I jus'… it's not dat I don' trus' y'."

"It's alright, really. I'm just worried about you, Remy. The emotional weight of all this…" she waved a hand airily, then frowned when she remembered he couldn't see the gesture. "I just want to make things better."

"T'ings are gettin' better." he settled back against the wall again, bringing his feet back up. "I din' realise it at firs', but dey are. I jus' need somet'ing t' do, y'know? I'm feelin'… useless." Jean smiled, glad to hear that first crumb of hope in his voice, something to feed, if they could find a way.

"We'll find you something. I think Bobby fills our quota for people who laze around the house. Stick with us, Remy. We'll get through this."

-

-

Harry looked up from one of his quieter nights at the bar he ran not far out of New York. It wasn't dark, as bars went, but less on the dingy side than some of the establishments that surrounded it. Despite his quality interiors and better lighting, he tended to get fewer patrons than his competitors, just because of his standard clientele. Having a reputation for serving mutants did that to a man's business. Still, it made his life interesting. As the door opened he looked up to find his favourite customer at the threshold. Of all the mutant powers, this man's seemed to be the ability to drink huge amounts of alcohol and not get drunk. He grinned.

"Logan! How's life with you, buddy?"

"I'm fixing to get really, really drunk, Harry. And I'm expecting you to help."


	2. Chapter 2

(not-so) Quick AN: This chapter is rated on here as M, which is Mature and translates to R in America and 16 in the UK. If you are under 16, I'm going to ask that you don't post any reviews. I'd rather you didn't read anything over your suggested age category, but I'm sure that's going to mean nothing, and do just as much. The rating is there for a reason, and I find it very disconcerting to write about things that are aimed at a very particular audience with the knowledge that underage readers have access to my work. While this introduction is very "softly, softly," there is a chapter coming up that is M. I intend to soften it for this website, as they do not take adult material, but the content will be the same regardless of the words used. If you are under age, read if you must, and enjoy if you can. Just don't make a noise, and keep your weight of my conscience, please?

-.

Chapter 2  
(was betaed by Ross and Jukebox, who are wonderful, and features Logan's bad language, which is R on occasion)

-.

Harry was listening to the tallest tale he'd ever heard out of a drunken man's mouth, and was facing the worrying concept that some, if not all of it, could be true. Logan had six litres of whisky in him, and was starting to look a little the worse for wear. He'd only been in the bar an hour.

"So what you're saying is…"

"Everything' s fucked!! I love him, an' everything's fucked between us, and I'm here gettin' drunk 'cause he's there and looks *so good* and I can jus' about get 'way with touchin' 'im, but can't get any closer 'cause I was drunk an'… an' *he* was drunk and we did faaar too much touching." Harry was relieved to see Logan take a breath; his babbling was verging on uncomfortable territory.

"If you ask me, seems like getting drunk's what caused this problem in the first place." Harry said wisely, and eyed the bottles. "I'm cutting you off by the way."

"Logan." A sharp, feminine voice cut in before he could object, and Logan spun so hard on the bar stool that Harry heard a sharp click. He winced as the burly man fell off the stool, clutching his neck.

"Oww!" he growled, "I think I pulled something."

"It'll heal," the purple-haired mutant standing in the bar's doorway told him sharply. Her hair looked almost black in the poor light, but Harry had seen it up close, it was definitely purple. A slow grin was spreading across Logan's face.

"Betsy Boop!" he hollered, drawing more than a few stares. "You came fer me?"

"Drink?" Harry offered in a slightly quieter tone. She shook her head once.

"I've got to drive this moron home, so he doesn't destroy his bike."

"Pah!" Logan shouted, standing back up, "Doesn't matter to me, I'm the WOLVERINE." Harry swore and ducked down as the blades shot out of Logan's knuckles.

"Yes, yes, very nice." Betsy patted Logan condescendingly on the shoulder. "Now put those away and go get in the car." She waved over her shoulder as Logan staggered inaccurately towards the door. "Thanks Harry."

"No worries." he answered, shaking slightly. No one could say running this bar wasn't interesting.

-.

"But I want to sleep in this room." Betsy was using everything she had to brace against Logan's superior strength as he pulled towards the door she was trying to walk past. She was lucky he was an uncoordinated drunk, else she would have had no chance.

"Logan, as accepting as LeBeau is of your faults, I think even he might have something to say about that. How long before your healing factor kicks in and you get sober?"

"Hmmm…" Logan went blank and Betsy managed to get him a couple more uncooperative steps closer to his own room. "Remy an' I don't get along ssso well when alcohol s'involved." Logan swayed slightly, looking back at Remy's door. He made a decisive step back towards it, and Betsy grabbed his arm again and dragged him back.

"I've never seen you this drunk, Logan. What's going on?"

"Thought I'd get outta tha way before I bashed Wing's skull in. Thought you might not 'appreciate' that." He pronounced appreciate as if it was a particularly foreign word. "Asshole. S'if Remy needs more shit right now. He's beating himself half to death as 'tis."

"Yes, well. Warren might have deserved it, but Remy didn't deserve you pissing off to god-knows-where. "

"What do you know about Remy and me?" Logan demanded, trying to be intimidating as he swayed from side to side and not quite managing.

Betsy smirked, any suspicions she might have had confirmed. "You're buzzing with something, Logan, and I don't mean whiskey. I've been seeing little things. You never used to use his name. You hardly use any of our names. And I have to tell you, Remy's never been this relaxed around anyone before without being unconscious first. I mean… he just lost his sight, and he's… well he's practically normal around you."

"Really?" Logan said, dubiously. "I…" He scowled with the effort of thinking. "I need to piss." And with that, he staggered off towards the men's room.

"Sober up, Logan, and go to bed. Training in the morning." Betsy called after him. Well, at least she'd warned him. She wasn't going to go into the bathroom with him and hold his sideburns back while he threw up six litres of alcohol. He'd be sober in less time than it took most men to realise they were drunk. Washing her hands of the problem, she went to bed. She could only hope that Warren had calmed down since this afternoon.

-.

Remy strolled into the Danger Room control booth the next morning and threw himself into the nearest chair with a wry grin. Scott glanced up from the display as he programmed in the morning's training session. If it hadn't been for the slightest hesitation in the other man's step as he walked through the door, or the noise of the cane that had disappeared into a pocket of his long duster as he stepped into a known space, Scott might have been fooled into thinking nothing had happened in the last few months. He might have believed that this was the same man that Storm had brought to them, young and full of trouble. Still full of trouble, Scott noted, as he spun the chair around.

"Yes, Remy? Anything I can help you with?"

"Remy's bored." he said, stopping the chair from spinning for a moment.

"Good for him. We're busy." he turned back to the console. The chair spun once more and stopped decisively.

"C'mon Cyke. Let me do somet'in'. Anyt'in'." He leaned forward on the chair, appealing. "I'll be a fuckin' victim, if dat's what y' need."

"Gambit, what we need…" Cyclops sighed. "I'll see what I can do. Get in uniform and get out of my control room."

-.

Remy strode into the Danger Room in a swirl of coats and tracked the movement of the five figures that turned to face him. With his kinaesthetic sense no longer dangerously linked to his charging power as it had once been, Remy was slowly learning to explore the spaces he could no longer see, through the heat and movement within them. Bobby he could identify from the group immediately - his core so much colder than the others. Logan's build gave him away and he could make out Psylocke's hair, tied into a long tail down her back unlike Jean or Storm. Storm's uniform cloak was a long, continuous flicker of movement as she stirred soft winds in the enclosed space, so that left the last long-haired female figure as Jean.

"Remy, do you need something?" Ororo was the first to speak up. Before he could even think to reply, there was a deep buzzing as the Danger Room engaged and the world was brought to life. Remy's stomach dropped out as he was lifted up off the ground, but he didn't move as the constructed world dropped into place around him.

"No, wait!" Jean's voice on the comm. system. "Scott, Remy's in here."

"He's what!? Well, find him." came the answer. Remy grinned. Scott always had been a dreadful actor.

"Scott, he's in one of the buildings. Shut down the Danger Room before he gets hurt." Storm sounded almost scared. Remy rolled his eyes, pulled the cane out of his pocket and started to explore his surroundings.

"Storm, I can't do that. You have to accomplish your objective."

"What's our objective, Scott?" Jean asked, obviously talking over Storm's continuing argument.

"Rescue the hostages and guide them to the safe point."

"Would Remy happen to be one of the hostages, Scott?" Betsy asked studying the newly formed surroundings.

"He might. Or he might be the one behind the whole thing."

"What?! What are we supposed to do, if we don't even know who we can take out and who we can't?" Bobby demanded.

"What we always do, when we don't know good from bad." Jean answered, with a smile.

"Tie 'em up and ask questions later." Logan smirked. "Gambit musta really been pissin' Cyke off."

"I guess so."

-.

There was nothing in the room with Remy but a chair, one window and a door in the wall opposite it. He hadn't been told whether he was a hostage or a bad guy, and there was only one way to tell at this point. Outside the room there would be guards - whether drones or men, he wouldn't know until he stuck his head out. If he was a hostage, the guards would react, if he was the bad guy they would let him pass.

Decision made, he tucked the cane away and pulled out a fan of cards from a different pocket. Walking up to the door he stepped up to the wall and threw the door open. A heartbeat, two more. No movement from outside.

"Gambit. What are you doing?" Scott's voice on the comms. Remy wondered if he had a closed channel to him, or if his was open like the others. If he spoke would they hear him? He stayed silent and stepped out into the corridor, waving his arms up and down and wandering about for a moment. Still nothing. Well, that answered his question. He pulled the cane back out and pocketed the cards. Tracking both sides of the corridor, he found six doors along either wall, and a stairwell at one end. Happy that nothing in the corridor was going to jump out and bite him, he started opening doors.

-.

Storm looked absolutely furious, and was whipping the winds about her roughly as she searched from the Danger Room skies. Jean had taken control and ordered the four X-men to the four corners of the landscape to sweep each building, knowing that as the Danger Room activated it could have shifted Remy anywhere. Storm had been in the air before Jean had even said it, and it had frustrated the leader of the exercise. Still, Ororo was only doing what she would have sent her to do, so she couldn't argue chain of command with her now. Heading towards the tall building in the corner to the right of the door that she'd allotted to herself, Jean wondered just what Remy had been doing to annoy Scott.

-.

Remy paused back at the door to the room he'd started in. Every room he'd checked had been empty, each with a window on one wall, which mapped out the general shape of the building for him. He knew he'd been lifted when the program had started, so he wasn't on the ground floor. That would make him less obvious from the windows if anyone on the ground was looking in, but Storm would be in the air. He was going to have to keep back from the perimeter walls. He hadn't come across anyone else, but that didn't mean there weren't hostages on other floors of this building. If he was going to start transporting hostages, though, he needed to know what guard system was in place. There obviously weren't humanoid guards, or he would have come across them. If he assumed there were guard units on every floor, he needed some way of identifying them, but until one of them was active, he wouldn't be able to sense them. The X-men were still outside, and he had to assume  
there were more buildings, otherwise they would have been on him already.

"Scott, can the others hear me?"

"No Gambit, you're on a closed channel."

"Dere are guard drones on dis floor, right? Can I have dem active?"

"What makes you assume there are any?"

"Y'ain' not'in' but predictable, Cyke."

"Why do you want the drones active?"

"I wanna have some fun."

"I thought not making you the victim was letting you have fun."

"Don' t'ink I ain' grateful. Mais… Look, if dey get me, I go down an' dat's it. De rest, dey pick up an unconscious hostage, an' dey're none de wiser. But if I don'… well den, dere's so much more fun t'be had."

Scott didn't have to look at the camera feed from the room to know that the Cajun was grinning widely. He sighed before reengaging the comms. "OK, sure. But if Ororo demands my head, this was your idea."

"Sure, sure…" Remy took a step back into the room he'd started in. All the other doors were closed. If Cyclops was true to form, there would be up to six guards - one at either end of the corridor, one that appeared at random as a roaming hall guard and potentially a couple of rooms that would be guarded as if there were a hostage inside. The X-men had been caught out before by ignoring rooms that were unguarded and focusing on rooms that were.

Three bright points of movement appeared in the wall with a slight whine to signal the triggering of the drones. He could see now that they were round hovering drones dropping from the walls, and he stepped into the hallway so that two were in front of him and one was behind. He flicked out two cards at the drones approaching him from the front and fell into a crouch to twist on his feet and face the one behind him. He threw the card as the hovering ball accelerated towards him and hit it right on the nose, the burning debris bright points in his vision, fading slightly as the heat and movement dissipated. As he stood up, dusting guard fragments off his clothes, something hit him squarely in the back, toppling him forwards onto the ground. Rolling quickly onto his back and extracting another card from his tangled coat beneath him, he tossed it upwards when the bot was directly overhead and threw his hands over his face as the pieces of the guard rained  
down on him. He got up and shook pieces of machinery out of his coat. "D'I miss dat de firs' time, or was it anot'er one?"

"You missed."

"Shit." He grumbled, heading for the stairwell as he pulled his cane back out of his pocket. "So Cyke. If I'm de bad guy - shouldn't I know where de hostages are?"

"You don't honestly expect me to tell you that. What are you planning?" Remy cut the comm. line off with a tap and stood in the stairwell listening. The building was tall enough to have a stairwell that echoed, but he couldn't hear anyone else on it. That didn't mean there weren't already X-men in the building, just that they weren't there en-masse. Between them, they tended to shout a lot during simulations. During the real thing too, for that matter.

Exploring the landing carefully, he found the steps up and the steps down. He couldn't find any windows in the stairwell, so he was better concealed here. Picking the upwards stairs just in case there was already someone downstairs, Remy followed two flights before coming to another landing, this time with a door. Standing still outside the door, he could sense the roaming drone patrolling this corridor, and maybe some hint of movement inside one of the rooms. He tried to narrow his focus on it, but the motion didn't resolve into anything meaningful, and just outside the stairwell he could see the bright heat and motion of Storm in flight, which dragged his attention forcefully away from the smaller movement. Bringing his focus back to himself, Remy palmed a handful of cards and rested his hand on the door. It didn't move inwards so he stepped alongside the door and found the handle. He pulled the door open and swung himself around the corner, pelting  
cards at the drones already activating. He got one before it left the alcove in the wall it had been hiding in, and the patrolling drone went down quickly with a long shot - it's even height making it easy to target. It took a spread of cards to take the final two drones down, several missing wildly and going on to do damage all around the corridor.

"They're going to see you, if you blast a hole in the wall, you realise." Scott pointed out dryly across the comms. Remy ignored him.

He stepped up to the wall where he could feel that flicker of movement and searched until he found the nearest door. Stepping inside, he grabbed the drone hovering just inside the doorway with his hands and threw it outside with a card jammed into its casing, slamming the door behind him. There was a muffled explosion and Remy grinned. The motion resolved into a human shape, colder than it should be, not lit in his vision by much other than its own movement.

"Hallo." he pitched his voice low and calm. "You're safe wit' me."

The voice response systems installed into hostage simulations had been put in place when a hostage - a real one - had decided she was safer with her captors than with the angry, loud people that had charged into the room demanding that she came with them. Remy still thought the strangest thing he'd ever seen was Logan trying to find some happy medium that the computers would accept as non-threatening.

"Will y' follow me?" he asked the hostage construct. There was something he assumed was a nod, and the hostage stood up. Remy frowned and tried to work out what was wrong with the kinetic-based images he was still learning to interpret. The hostage stepped forwards and he realised there wasn't any perspective distortion or anything else wrong with the image he thought he was seeing. He just wasn't used to hostages standing eye-to-eye with him. And that extra wave of motion around his legs… what was that? Hang on… was that…

"So Cyke. Tell me about dese hostages."

-.

"I've found Remy." Jean's voice came across the speaker, before Scott could speak up.  
"Jean… what do you mean?" Bobby's voice. "I picked up Gambit a couple of minutes ago, I was just headed back out…"

"I've got another one." Logan this time. "But yer all idiots. It don't move nothin' like the kid."

"How many of these are there?" Ororo's voice, filled with humour.

"Thought you'd find this a bit more interesting. " Scott's reply was on an open channel, just a little more distortion to the sound, but Remy was sure the reply was meant for him as much as the others.

"Well den. Le's get started." he grinned.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

"So Cyke." Remy stepped back into the stairwell with the clone copy of him on his heels. "De ot'ers - dey're playin' hide an' seek, an' den spot th' diff'rence 'tween me an' de constructs. What's t' stop dem spottin' me straight 'way? Some pretty big diff'rences here, since las' time you took a scan o' me fer training." Remy spread his hands wide, to suggest that 'here' was his body. He didn't know where Scott would have cameras, but the whole training sequence was being recorded. He knew Scott would see the gesture.

"The images of you are all wearing gloves and glasses, dressed in uniform just as you are, and they're all carrying signs saying: "I have been told not to speak". I've done a quick modification for your change in eye colour, but they shouldn't let anyone take the sunglasses off them for it to be seen."

"Hmm, now dat's subtle." he interrupted sarcastically.

"Well, they managed to fool Jean and Bobby, if only briefly. They know what they're looking at now. Gambit, if you go up against them like this, someone's going to get hurt, and I don't want to be responsible if it's you."

"But y' do, if it's one o' de ot'ers? Scott, dat's harsh."

"If they get themselves hurt at this point, it's their own fault."

"So yer happy wit' me launchin' an offensive den?"

"Hey, if you and your clone want to go up against everyone else, plus… four hostages at last count, be my guest. But don't tell anyone else it was my idea."

"Scott, you worry too much. It's duly noted." Remy darted up the next flight of stairs and called the construct up after him. "You an' me, my handsome clone, we're gonna play a game wit' dose nasty X-men. You don' wanna trust dem. Dey're not safe t' be around. So… we're gonna gat'er up all de ot'ers an' find a way t' get dem to safety." he spoke as he would to a child, softly and reassuringly. "Meanwhile, you stand out here and stay outta sight. I'm gonna see who else I can find, d'accord?" Remy disappeared into the corridor and reappeared a moment later with another clone. Advancing another flight of stairs, they picked up two more clones in a shower of drone pieces, and a further one on the floor above. That made one clone for each of the five floors he'd checked so far, plus himself. "Get carried away much, Scott?" Remy asked as he stepped back into the stairwell with the fifth clone of the building. He ate his words a moment later, as his enthusiasm nearly had him walking into a broom cupboard door when the building yielded no further floors. Laughing at himself, he moved back through what was becoming quite a crowd of freed hostages and sat on the top step of the stairwell.

He let his sense of movement expand into the space around him. The sense stretched out in a uniform sphere - giving him as much information about the floors beneath him and the roof of the Danger Room above, as it did to either side. The hostages behind him were cold, waiting for the next command, unmoving until one came, and he moved past them easily.

The wider he spread himself, though, the softer the focus, as he struggled to process fixed distances at infinite angles from his central point; an observation of continuous three-dimensional space. By focusing on the first solid point of heat he came to, he could clarify that sphere into a cone of vision defining a direction, but the distance was lost as soon as he started to focus. More points of heat appeared as he spread further out into the room, and he flicked his point of focus in and out at each one, defining a direction for each X-man. He fought a headache, as something became clear to his stretched limits. The X-men were converging on the building he was in.

Pulling his attention sharply back in to himself, he fought to regain his equilibrium for a moment. He was glad he was already sitting down, because the ground felt uneven beneath him, and he wasn't sure he would have stayed on his feet, amazing balance not withstanding. Grabbing the handrail, he pulled himself up, as the ground began to stabilise a little.

"We need ta get outta here, mes amies. Stick close." Scrambling down the stairs as fast as he thought it was safe and praying that there weren't any odd-sized steps that might trip him, Remy stumbled out onto the next landing using the handrail to pivot around the corner and onto the next flight of stairs. He could see the bright movement of the others following him down and focused on finding places for his own feet.

Coming to the floor he'd started on, Remy slowed and dropped onto the ground floor at a walk. He walked uncertainly from the base of the steps towards the opposite wall, pulling the folded cane out of his pocket and hearing it clatter on the wall as he opened it. Remy reached out and touched the cold wall, concrete not glass. Calling the others over to him, he lined them up along the wall, wary of windows that might give away his position.

Putting his left hand on the wall to keep his balance, Remy gave up his internal focus again and reached out into the space around the building to find the X-men. Storm was overhead, but not nearby as she acted as the group's aerial surveillance. Bobby was a vivid dark spot against the room's ambient temperature - either gone to ice or having lowered the temperature around him to create a slide or some other ice structure. There were shadows of movement around the iceman with no intrinsic heat themselves - like the five clones around him. The movement didn't give a sharp enough edge to allow him to count the constructs, but they all seemed small against another point of movement, large as it advanced from a much closer position towards what had to be the door to the building. Behind him, two more figures were advancing, obviously converging on a door or entrance.

He brought his attention back to the room at the base of the stairwell. The corridors he'd been searching had been long and thin, suggesting that the building was the same. If there was an entrance at the front of the building and an entrance at the back, he needed another way out. He pulled out a handful of cards, aware that any explosion would bring the others running.

"OK, guys. Dis is how we're gonna to do dis."

-

The Danger Room was full of high rise buildings, and between the five of them they had scattered into the complex. Each building had been a maze of passageways and rooms, forcing them to check the whole building carefully for each of the constructs that they picked up. Some of the buildings had been guarded, some hadn't, and the hostages had been randomly scattered between. Bobby had taken charge of collecting the hostages in the open space created by a carpark, and the rest of the team had ended up converging on a six-story brownstone in the centre of the other buildings. With rough grunts, Logan had suggested that he didn't think any of the hostages they'd picked up so far was Remy himself, and so he had to be inside. Jean quickly fixed everyone's positions in her mind as they surrounded the building. Wolverine was coming up alongside her, to approach the staff entrance at the back of the building - a blank red door with a small carpark surrounded by low walls. Psylocke was approaching the big public glass double-door entrance at the front of the building, while Storm kept an eye on their approach from the air and every so often glanced back at the huddle of hostages still with Iceman, ready to back him up if he needed help.

"Any sign?" Jean asked Logan when they were close enough to speak without shouting.

"I picked up one more. That makes six with Bobby. Psylocke's on her way in on…" Logan was interrupted by a tremendous explosion as the wall around the left hand corner from them exploded outwards into the narrow alleyway. They were forced to vault the short wall to get around the corner, but they were both in place before the area settled, brickwork and plaster still skittering out of the newly-made opening. Storm landed on the wreckage, as Psylocke came around the corner at a run, skidding to a stop as Storm stepped up to the entrance.

"Remy?" Storm shouted into the darkened space. Psylocke put her hands on her hips and chuckled. Storm gave her a sharp look and the purple haired psychic gestured widely in reply, taking in the destruction.

"Can we say distraction much?" she grinned.

Storm smiled wildly and threw herself back into the air as the winds lifted. Leading the unit, Jean started rattling off orders. "Psylocke, get to Bobby. Wolverine, your priority is the hostages. Start on the top floor and clear the building, I'll start on this floor and search for Gambit."

Psylocke headed off towards Bobby at a run, as Jean and Logan stepped through the gap made in the wall. Logan wrinkled his nose at the plaster still falling in fine dust from the ceiling, and headed straight towards the stairwell ahead of him. He hesitated as he crossed the room, a smile pulling at one side of his mouth.

He looked back at Jean. "He's been upstairs, but he was definitely down here, and recently."

"You think he's already cleared the building?"

Logan grinned. "I'd bet on it."

Jean stepped up to the door that led down towards the main entrance to the building, as Logan disappeared up the stairs. Even as she stepped through them, there was a flicker of movement on her left and she spun to find a construct slumped against the wall, the white board that was hanging around its neck proclaiming, as all the others had, 'I have been told not to talk'.

"Hello!" she greeted as she stepped up to it and resisted the urge to reach out to take off its glasses. Like all the others, it didn't respond to her at all - and the glasses hid any chance of recognition that might have shown up in those alien eyes. "You're safe now, I'm going to take you back to the others, so we can get you out of here."

"Psylocke." Storm's voice broke in over the communicator. "There are a group of three making their way towards you. Remy could be with them. I'm going to follow them in, but I don't want to risk them taking fright and scattering into the buildings."

"Received, Storm. I'll intercept them now."

Happy that things were under control outside, Jean stepped into the big open reception area of the building they were in. She edged into the space uneasily - knowing she was vulnerable to attack here. If Remy had been trying to distract them, it seemed most likely he'd made a break for the exit with the group that Storm had just spotted, but that was assuming he'd managed to get to the front of the building while Betsy wasn't covering it. A half-circle reception desk sat in front of the big glass doors, and peering out, Jean could see the huddle of three constructs disappearing between two buildings, Storm hovering overhead. Jean jumped as she spotted two more constructs half hidden by the shadows. They were both blank-faced and covered with plaster dust like the one she had left by the door. She wandered over to greet them and brought them to where the other one was standing by the door.

"Storm, Jean, Logan. We've got him." Came a message from Bobby. Jean smiled as Storm lifted back into the air to check on them. Gathering the three clones she'd picked up and with some happy one-sided conversation to keep them entertained and compliant, Jean started walking out of the building towards the group, knowing Logan would bring anyone he found as soon as he'd cleared the building, but fairly sure that he wouldn't find anyone. She was quite impressed really. Remy had single-handedly managed to collect five constructs from the building and had nearly escaped with two of them. In heavily contrived circumstances, granted, but there was no question as to what he'd achieved.

As she joined the group, she could see Psylocke stood away from the others, holding Remy - wearing no sunglasses or board, just as they'd seen him enter the room - with his hands together, high up behind his back and his head towards the ground. She let the three she'd picked up join the others and turned to see Logan come around the corner alone.

"Pieces of drones all over the place." he grinned. He glanced over at Betsy and frowned slightly. "An' if yer gonna hold him like that, make sure ya check his hands fer cards?" Betsy turned the hands she was holding up in the air to show they were empty.

Storm dropped into the carpark as the danger room doors opened and let Scott in, grinning.

"Well done, my brother." Storm smiled. "You nearly escaped us all."

Logan met Betsy's eyes, then glanced over at Jean. Bobby started moving the other hostages over to the group. Remy didn't look up.

"Feels too easy." Jean said, echoing Logan's thoughts.

Betsy nodded. "I was thinking the same thing."

"Jean, buildings clear?" Scott asked.

"Yes, but we're not…"

"How many hostages?" he pushed, asking for fast decisions.

"Eleven plus Remy." Jean replied, happy that that, at least, was true.

"Where's Remy?" Scott asked, with an eyebrow raised above his visor. Jean didn't reply immediately, just looked over at Logan. "Here?" Scott asked, pointing at the man that Betsy was still holding down.

"No." Betsy made the decision. "He's too obvious. He's the decoy." She didn't let the man she held up, but looked over at the group that Bobby had brought over, who had fallen into a randomised holding pattern, sitting, standing or pacing about.

"Hostages, could you all please stand up?" Bobby asked, seeing the question in Betsy's eyes. All eyes were on them suddenly, immediately critical. They were all identical, all mostly hidden in a big duster, sunglasses hiding eyes and gloves hiding hands, every single one with the announcement that they weren't allowed to speak.

"They've all followed at some point in this session, without guidance. Do we think Remy's still concealed?" Betsy suggested.

"He's here." Logan replied immediately.

"Yeah, they've all followed. But Remy could do that easy, and more besides, if he's done what you're suggesting." Bobby spoke up.

"On the clock, guys. Make a decision. If you need to go back out, you need to do it soon."

"Hostages, come over here. It's not safe where you're standing." Jean spoke from where she was standing beside Scott. All eyes watched. Groups of constructs were designed to move randomly, so they didn't fall into step with each other. It was maybe ten strides from Bobby to Jean, but the ground between was uneven. One pair of feet stumbled and Logan hauled a grinning Cajun out of the group.

"Busted." Bobby grinned. Remy shot him a smile.

"Not too bad, t'ough, neh?"

"Which group were you hiding in?" Scott asked, sounding hugely entertained. "I lost track, when you blew the side of the building out."

"Jean picked me up in th' buildin'. Planned to get out wit' th'others, but didn' time it right. If Wolvie'd bin th' one, he'da seen me straight away. But Jean, she din' look twice at dis poor soul." he put both hands on his chest as if wounded by her disregard, still smiling wildly.

"We wouldn't have looked twice, if it hadn't been you." Jean grinned at Betsy and then Logan. "We were happy to take the decoy you handed us."

"Wasn' 'xactly realistic t'ough, neh?"

"Well now," Scott spoke up. "Let's put this in a real-world perspective. We've just pulled the only Asian out of a crowd of white-skinned civilians, or the only one wearing a lab coat or the only one not blind-folded and tied. Whatever… a snap judgement was made based on appearance, and it was wrong." The group all looked rightfully chastised, and Scott nodded to himself. "Come on, let's do a quick debrief. Gambit, I expect you to attend."

"But…"

"You attend a training session, you come to the debrief. That's that."

"Can't one of dose guys go?" He gestured at the crowd of constructs. "Y' don' expect me t' talk anyway."

"Come, trickster." Storm stepped up beside Remy and took his arm. "You can regale us all with your side of the story in the briefing room." They left the Danger Room with Jean and Psylocke in tow, and Scott lingered for a moment. Logan turned to look, a question in his gaze.

"Did you see that change? He's not at all like that around the house, his behaviour's been completely submissive. Put him back in a uniform, being hunted by X-men, and he turns into the man we expect to see. I don't know if it's the uniform or the adrenaline… I just don't think I'd realised quite how much of a front it is."

Logan looked at him silently for a second, glancing back at the door as it slid shut. "I don't think all of it is. We're happy, he's happy. We're amused, he's amused. We don't think he can do something and he doesn't think he can. We're angry and he turns it all in on himself. Even if we're not angry at him, he gets snarky, defensive, aggressive."

"So if we can admire what he's achieved, maybe he can admire that in himself?"

"It'd be a start. He didn't stumble following Jean, Scott. She woulda noticed straight away. His focus goes when the group is watching."

"Well, it's a place to start. We can make him a list of things to work on."

"Not that I don't approve, but you know he ain't rejoining the team."

"No. But it's good to know that the people we're leaving behind at the mansion can defend themselves in a tight spot."

"Why?"

"Things are changing, Logan. Lots of things."

-

"So Betsy." Bobby leaned against the doorframe into the lounge and tried to look calm. Betsy looked up coolly, disinterested, and Bobby fought a familiar urge to run away. "Any clue what's up with Remy at the moment?" Betsy snorted.

"Quite a few things, I'd think. You want to be more specific?"

"Yesterday he and Logan were very… close."

"I thought it was Ororo's lap he was falling asleep on."

"Yeah but… close to 'Ro and close to Logan… they're different things."

"Really, how so?"

"I think I could get away with falling asleep on Ororo if it was innocent enough. Logan would gut me before I even thought about it."

"So surely your question is 'what's up with Logan'? Remy's always been *far* too physically affectionate with everyone."

"Less so recently."

"And whose fault is that?" Bobby fell quiet, and Betsy gave a wry grin.

"We really did fall for it when Rogue told us he was dead. We just… it was *Rogue*."

"I know. It was twisted from the start."

"So… you're not going to tell me what's going on with Remy or Logan then?"

"Ask them yourself, Bobby. Show them you care enough to notice." Nodding self-consciously, Bobby pushed away from the doorframe and headed upstairs.

-

Waiting for Scott to finally finish looking over the videos from the training session earlier in the day and leave, Jean turned to Ororo, the thing that had been bugging her all day finally bursting out now that it was just her and her friend in the briefing room.

"Ororo, there's something weird going on."

Ororo leaned forwards in her chair, seeing the excitement of the gossip Jean had to share in her eyes. She glanced up to make sure Scott was out of earshot before replying. "How so?"

"Last night Scott was in the professor's office all night, and he came to bed fuming in the early hours of the morning."

"They had a disagreement? That's certainly out of the ordinary."

"I can't think of it ever happening before - I mean, I can, of course - but not like this. Not leaving Scott so overwrought, and with him not being able to talk about it. I can't think of anything that might divide them like this. Scott will defer to the professor in just about anything in the end."

"Maybe he is finally starting to assert himself in the mansion?"

"Between you and me, I think the professor pushed leadership onto Scott because he's the kind of man who won't assert himself. He's more than capable of leading, even without the professor around, but he will always defer to the professor or what he thinks the professor would do."

"Something serious then, to cause this rift."

"It would seem so." Jean raised her eyebrows. "I think we're going to need to be on our guard for a while." Jean jumped as the alarm went off, loud in the enclosed room, and they both giggled nervously, as though caught in their gossiping, as the team hurried back into the briefing room from around the mansion.

-

There was a short mission that took up the whole afternoon, nothing more exciting than a brief appearance by Sabretooth - long gone by the time they got to the scene almost an hour away. Bobby spent the time in the blackbird deciding exactly what he wanted to ask Logan or Remy, and which of them he would approach first. It wasn't until late that evening that he managed to get up the courage to go and knock on Remy's door - determining him to be the safer option, in that he was less likely to disembowel Bobby just for disturbing him. It was one of those moments where you spend so long worrying about asking someone a question that it's a real shocker when the answer becomes clear just moments before you actually, finally manage to ask.

Logan had answered Remy's door and there was something undeniably possessive about his glare.

"You're with Remy!" Bobby squeaked out his realisation, completely without meaning to. Logan scowled and dragged Bobby collar first into Remy's room. The Cajun was sat on the bed looking a little pale. Bobby was quickly feeling a little off colour himself. "I won't tell anyone, I promise." He blurted out breathlessly when Logan released his collar. He blanched when he realised he was implying that what they were doing was wrong. "I mean…"

"Bobby, it's okay, really." Remy reassured him, dark eyes looking completely unnatural in the low light. "We've not tol' anyone yet, it's jus' a lil'… unexpected." Remy grinned wryly, running a hand through his hair.

"You're telling me." Bobby breathed, falling onto the bed beside Remy and punching his shoulder. "So how the fuck did this happen?" Logan chuckled and took the desk chair, settling in for what was looking to be their first 'coming out' conversation. It was going to be a long night.


	4. Chapter 4

Once again, thanks hugely to Jukebox and Ross for their beta SKILZ. Esp in  
fixing a particularly fussy piece with the prof. And super-especially because  
this chapter is EPIC long.

Enjoy the dialogue of dooooooooom (now with extra oooooo).  
.,.

.,.  
Chapter 4

"LeBeau, post!" Remy flinched as a package hit him on the chest, before he'd even had a chance to think about catching it. He fumbled it as it dropped towards the floor, throwing his hands in the air as he finally dropped it.

"T'anks Bobby." he said dryly.

"Sorry!" Bobby's embarrassed laugh came with a gesture Remy could see in his mind as he knelt to pick up the package - hand through blond hair, shoulders up, back rounded. He came across it by a mixture of luck and training, and hefted it in his hands as he stood back up and continued on his way towards the kitchen - where he'd been headed before being accosted by flying parcels.

He had been painfully tense all of the day before, with the knowledge that 'someone else knew' hanging over his head like an axe waiting to drop. It wasn't as if Bobby was likely to go around singing about Remy and Logan sharing a bed, but it still felt somehow threatening. He felt exposed. He'd been trying to avoid Bobby all day, but so far it hadn't been going well.

.,.

"Remy." As he turned on the kettle to boil, the PA clicked on and spat out his name. He jumped and nearly dropped his mug, cursing as the teaspoon rattled out of it onto the floor. "Can you come to my office please." The system clicked off, taking the Professor's voice with it. Remy scowled at the just boiling kettle and flicked it off again. He put his mug and the parcel down on the side and ran both hands through his hair, breathing out slowly in an attempt to calm his rattled nerves.

He picked up his parcel again and stepped out into the hallway, marking his way with points he knew by heart now. The professor's office door had always been a fairly imposing part of the house. He'd wondered in the past if the concept was hardwired into the human psyche. He'd never had a professor, had been schooled by Jean-Luc for as long as he'd had schooling, and so it wasn't as if he had bad memories associated with being sent to the head-master. Still, standing in front of the door gave him a chill, even when he couldn't see the old oak and aged varnish. It wasn't doing anything for his battered nerves.

The interior of the professor's study was one of those things that could always be relied upon, though. Whether it was Scott or the Professor himself sat behind that desk, everything was always in exactly the same place. Someone might move a chair to sit in it, or pull a desk towards them or a lamp, but next time he went in everything would be back to exactly how it had been before. He'd always thought of it as something slightly OCD, though quite endearing. The space was laid out just so, in that wide and accessible way that made whoever was sitting behind the desk seem like someone you wanted to talk to; would be happy to talk to.

It shocked Remy to realise that there was something he'd been missing all along. The Professor got around the house like the rest of them. He led them all into the illusion that he was as able bodied as the next X-man; never seeming frail or incapable of any feat; going on missions without anyone looking twice. But of course he kept his office just so, he was in a wheelchair, he needed the room to manoeuvre. It had to be some kind of mind control - to make something so obvious… just… float past their perceptions.

Shaking off his bemusement with a determination to look deeper from now on, Remy knocked once and stepped inside. He was, after all, expected.

.,.

He found himself facing down Scott - the kinetic fire that burned out of the team-leader's eyes was intimidating when aimed straight at him, even with the restraint of the ruby quarz glasses. As Scott turned his head Remy could see with startling clarity the kinetic power that stopped short at those lenses. Scott turned back to face him and those lenses suddenly felt like far too small a barrier. There was movement on Remy's right, a gesture that he was too distracted to take note of, and he had to fight hard to suppress a start when the Professor cleared his throat.

"Would you like to take a seat, Remy?" the Professor offered blandly. His attention focused on the room again and, mentally chastising himself for being so easily thrown, Remy wandered towards the back of the room where there was a wide sofa. He slumped into the seat as Scott resumed the pacing that he'd obviously interrupted - up and down in front of the desk. There was something resentful and immature in the action - as if it was more for the Professor's benefit than his own.

Remy cleared his throat when neither of them seemed inclined to talk.

"Got somet'in' t' say, mes amies?"

"Where is he? This is getting silly." Scott stopped in front of the Professor's desk and Remy would have had trouble working out which of them he was talking to if it hadn't been for kinetic-bright eyes turned away from him.

"He's coming, Scott. Give him some time to get used to this new way of being. He needs to learn to move efficiently, to get around easily."

Remy was on his feet with only half an idea why. "I'm not sittin t'rough your interfer'nce 'tween me an' big-bird. You can jus'…"

"Sit down, Remy." Scott ordered. Remy sat, but now he wasn't slumped into the seat. He was on the edge, tensed for flight. Scott glanced back at him and sighed, turning to face him fully. "There are other things going on here." There was a knock and Warren stepped in, pausing when faced with a tense Scott. Remy smirked, sensing the other's hesitation. He knew that feeling.

.,.

Scott glared at Warren as he stepped through the door, catching Remy's smirk out of the corner of his visor and knowing this could only go badly. Warren turned to the Professor for a second, visibly furious, and then spun on his heel, saying nothing as he headed towards the door.

The door shut with a gentle click before he had a hand on it and he turned back to the Professor.

"You're not our minder any more, Xavier. If we want to fight, we will. If you put me in a room with that man, you'll see what I'm still capable of."

"Warren, you're still capable of an awful lot more than you realise," the Professor sighed deeply, "But that's not why either of you are here." Scott took a seat on the Professor's desk as he talked, letting Warren take the chair in the corner rather than sit next to Remy on the wide sofa. "The first intake of students taken in to the school are long graduated, not counting the various individuals we've picked up along the way here and there, and the protection that educational front offered - legal and physical - is starting to wear thin. I want to relaunch the school fully, one hundred percent mutant intake. As many pupils as we can safely house."

"There are obvious issues," Scott broke in, talking to Warren and Remy, but introducing a conversation that he had obviously been over before with the Professor. "practical and in terms of safety. We've taken in kids briefly before, but this would be full board with a proper syllabus."

"You can't afford it." Warren spoke up. "Your funds are good, Professor, but not that good."

"You assume this will be free?" the Professor responded.

"So when y' say 'school f' de gifted', what y' a'tually mean is 'school f' de rich parents, who don' want people t' see deir mutie kids'?" Scott fought to hold back a smirk, keeping his eyes on the other men. It was tempting to look back at the Professor to see his reaction to the same points he'd been hammering away at himself, being made by other people.

"You're attacking this before I've even begun to explain." the Professor replied blandly.

"Jus' sayin' what I see, Monsieur." Remy replied coolly, with a shrug.

"I'd say we're repeating what Scott has already said." Warren added, seeing Scott's expression. "Why are you pushing something your primary advisor has objected to?"

"Because I make the decisions about what this school does and does not do." Xavier replied flatly, in a voice that made Scott think of being reprimanded as a kid. Much scarier than being shouted at. "This decision is long made, it just needs putting into effect. We are going to need some legwork done, initially. Sourcing equipment, training, making the accommodation presentable…"

"There might be modifications necessary - to make it safe for everyone. We're going to be taking in untrained kids, their powers will be unpredictable." Scott added. "There's funding available for all modifications to the mansion, we'll need nurses and councillors…"

"Professor, just how many students are you talking about here?" Warren was talking over Scott now.

"A rolling group, depending on intake, but anything up to two hundred."

"For a full syllabus?" Warren pushed. Scott glanced back at the Professor, frustrated, and found the other man leaning forwards on his desk, excitement making his eyes bright.

"Yes. With aims to complete the appropriate exams." the Professor replied quickly.

"All boarders or were you planning on having some day-students?"

"The intake will be national. I imagine only a small number will live close enough to commute." Warren hesitated this time, quick fire questions abating. Remy sat forwards in the chair.

"Dere's de fourt' floor, 's pretty much empty. Dere's some stuff stored up dere, files mos'ly, but dey're easy 'nough t' move. Plus dere's de west wing dat never got completed after de las' rebuild."

"There's no shortage of dorm space." Warren interrupted. "What you're missing is the practical space. Classrooms, science labs, gyms… I'm assuming you're not going to let them use the danger room to do sport?" The sarcasm in Warren's voice was palpable.

"Space has already been allocated," the Professor replied dismissively. "Scott has all the plans for you to look over. There is work that will need doing, which is why we need you making calls, finding the workmen, the equipment. The X-men do not have the spare time for a project like this, you two do." There was a hesitation at that and Warren glanced over at Remy for the first time, lips fixed in a thin line.

"If you gonna fill de mansion wit' emergent mutations… you gonna need a lot more security. Protection." Remy pointed out, looking wary.

"Have you talked to the others about the teaching?" Warren asked, sharply. "I'm assuming you are going to get the X-men to teach? Provided they have the spare time, of course." Scott looked back at the Professor again, gaze pointed.

"No, not yet." the Professor acknowledged Scott's look, but turned back to the other two. "For now, this is all to be kept quiet, understood? We want to keep any distractions to a minimum. If anyone asks, you were called in here to talk about this stupid feud that's been going on between you two."

"And on that note…" Scott began. As one, Remy and Warren stood up and left.

.,.

Logan opened his eyes and growled softly, unable to find enough focus for meditation. Ororo, sat opposite him, opened her eyes and gave him a questioning look. He continued their conversation where it had left off - on Sabretooth.

"You know as well as I do, four times in one month - there's something weird going on. He just shows up, does some property damage and is gone by the time we get there. There's no sign'a him rampagin' - it's all over the country with nothin' in between ta account fer him travellin'... 'Ro, there's somethin' going on."

"I will admit, his behaviour has been… unusual of late. But there has still been no explanation for his escape from the maximum security prison in Arizona, after he seemed so settled there on your advice."

"And that's somethin' else that's raised my hackles… no forced exit, no camera footage, guards didn't see anythin'… the whole thing stinks." Ororo looked up as the scramble alarm started through the house. She jumped up from the mat she had been sat on and ran out towards the lifts, Logan following her and Scott and Bobby joining them in the hall.

"If we can only get there before he leaves, we may have some idea of what is going on." Ororo called to the others, heading down towards the locker rooms at a run as the lift door opened.

"Maybe this time." Bobby offered, as the men split off towards the other end of the corridor.

.,.

The Professor met them on the Blackbird, the full complement of the current team loaded up barely five minutes after the call had come in. Still, the Professor thought it was too slow. Sabretooth's behaviour had been unusual, and an unpredictable mutant of Sabretooth's temperment was dangerous indeed. They jumped to seats and consoles like a well-oiled machine. More than practiced these days, they'd lived this for years, and were compensating well for the holes in their unit. It was Bobby who hesitated beside the Professor as they took off, last one in.

"Do you think they'll be alright? I mean - we're leaving Warren and Gambit alone in the house together." Bobby dropped into his seat as the acceleration caught him. Scott glanced back, but it was Logan that Bobby was addressing.

"Either one of them will leave the house or they'll both kill each other." Scott provided. "Either way, problem solved."

"But neither of them have left the house recently." Jean pointed out quietly.

"Maybe they'll resort to the second option then."

.,.

Warren was debating calling a taxi into the city - banned from driving for at least four weeks after any form of dysrhythmia - when the phone in the hall rang. He walked over to pick it up, trying not to rush as he felt his heart rate pick up after a few long strides. He swore at it as it rang off after only a couple of rings. Going to pick up the handset to call a taxi, he hesitated, taken aback by the strange scene in the rec room. It wasn't so much that the scene was unusual, it was something that he'd seen many times before - but not recently. Not for some time.

Remy was playing cards on the table. He had what must have been two packs, from the volume of them, laid out in something that vaguely resembled solitaire, and was slowly playing the rest of the deck into the game.

"Are you winning?" He asked mockingly. He couldn't really be playing - there was no way he could see the cards - he had to be going through the motions for relaxation or something. As Warren watched Remy moved an ace into the space at the top of his game.

"Not yet." Two - three - four followed onto the ace. Warren stepped forwards, curiosity outweighing the company involved.

"What are you playing?"

Remy grinned, but didn't look up - didn't have any reason to, Warren acknowledged. "Forty T'ieves." he replied. Warren blanched. Of course. Another ace into the foundations, and another few cards dropped onto the tableau, forming neat rows of suits, their numbers sequential.

"How are you doing that?" He found himself holding his breath, waiting for the 'didn't you hear, I regained my sight - leaving you the only sad bastard on the inactive list again'. Instead, Remy picked up a discarded card and flicked it towards him. It was such a practiced gesture, one he'd seen so many times before, that Warren had to fight the urge to jump out of the way of the harmless missile and make himself reach out to catch it.

It looked like any other card - four sides and a caricature joker on the front. He flipped it over and found nothing but the standard red-hatched backing. Turning the card back over, he spotted a strange shadow in the two opposing corners. Now that he was looking, he could see the Braille imprinted on the corner of the card under the printed 'Joker' label. The card was double thickness so that the embossed dots didn't show on the back of the card to advantage a sighted player.

"Clever." He mused, putting the card back down on the table edge and looking over the Cajun's tableau.

"M' sister sent 'em. Came dis mornin'." Remy replied quietly. Warren watched a card that could have gone into play get discarded and tutted under his breath.

"Shouldn't have done that." he commented. Remy looked up this time, and scowled.

"Done what?" he asked predictably. Warren watched with growing curiosity as subtle fingers ran over the surface of the discarded card and then across the front of the neat tableau, shifting cards and disrupting piles accidentally as he went. Remy found the corresponding card and moved the discarded one, messing the discarded pile and turning the entire system to chaos.

"You're really having problems with this, aren't you." Warren smirked.

"'d like t' see you do better." Remy retorted, throwing the deck down and gesturing at them.

With a theatrical sigh, Warran dropped his bag down and took a seat opposite Remy, gathering up the cards and splitting the two packs by the pattern on the back. Looking at the two packs side-by-side he could see that the pattern on the back was raised slightly, giving one pack of cards a slightly different texture than the other. He wasn't sure he would have noticed it, if he wasn't looking.

"Surely you'd have more success with a smaller game - one with less possibilities? Are you trying to memorise the tableau?" Remy looked baffled for a minute.

"Umm… yeah. Jus' tryin' t' keep track 'f de top cards."

"How are you working out their positions?"

"What?"

"The positions? It's no use knowing the third from the right is a King if you don't know where the right is, or the left for that matter."

"I was… touchin' dem. Find 'em each time."

"That's no good. That's just going to mess up your tableau. What if you were working with things you couldn't touch?"

"I wouldn't be able to play cards…" Remy answered blandly, feeling a little dazed at Warren's sudden geniality.

"Think about this tactically… You're guiding soldiers on a battlefield. You can communicate with them, and have captains on the field telling you where each battalion is, but you need to be able to picture that battlefield, and you can't keep checking in with each soldier individually."

"What y' doin', Wings? What is dis?"

"Oh, fuck you too, LeBeau. I was just trying to help. The Professor used to make us work on battle scenarios like this. Scott was always the best at it, but I did well enough. Look… lay out four cards and then tell me where they are, without touching them after you've laid them."

.,.

Creed threw himself down into the chair in the corner of the opulent office interior, which didn't match the concrete walls and metal blast doors. The chair creaked out a complaint at the addition of such a weight.

"I'm fucking bored." Creed griped, ignoring the chair. The other man didn't look up from the pile of papers in front of him, reaching out for a calculator as he scribbled down figures on the page. "When do I get to kick some ass? You know if I stuck around a little longer, the X-men would show up, right?"

"Yes, I realise that. Your entertainment is not my responsibility. Just show up at the times shown and make sure you continue to leave within the time set, do you understand?"

"The things I'm leaving behind don't even blow up. You could hire *anyone* to break a few cars apart and knock holes in buildings. 'S crampin' my *style*."

The man looked up, pencil in hand, and gave him a long look.

"Fine, fine. I'm going."

.,.

"As soon as Hank lets me out of house arrest, I'm out of here. I need to get away." Warren watched as Remy placed the next card square on top of the previous one, with his left hand framing the tableau to give himself a point of reference. He squashed the grin of pride that he could feel tugging at his lips. This was Gambit, he reminded himself.

"Seriously?" Remy placed the last card out of his hand onto the table. The game wasn't won, but the tableau was nearly perfect.

"You'd do the same if you had the guts to do it."

"You gon' buy a nice lil' bungalow an' retire t' de countryside?"

"Fuck you, LeBeau. I have a business. An office in the city. I have *places* to go."

"Hmm, nice an' low-stress, hehn? How close's de nearest 'ospital? Y' don' t'ink dat havin' Henri here bin what saved y' life dis last few weeks?"

"Of course he has. But now I'm fine. If he wants to take me off the team, ground me, give me lists of drugs longer than my arm… that's fine with me. I can handle that. But I'm not going to roll over and play dead."

"Y' in denial, Wings. Y' can' walk up de stairs wit'out gettin' outta breat'. Y' t'ink y' gon' be able t' pace about de city, y' got anot'er t'in' comin'."

"At least I'll get the cottage in the countryside. You get communal care and someone to drive you to the supermarket once a week." Warren's cheeks were flaming with anger, but he still felt the poorly concealed flinch from the other man.

"Long as she's hot, maybe I don' care." It was a poor imitation of not caring, but Warren took it for what it was.

"How're you going to tell, huh?"

"Accidental gropin', mon ami. It's de key t' de whole t'ing." Warren snorted.

"Yeah, I can see that." They fell quiet for a moment. "Your poker face has gone to shit, Remy. You look like you're about to cry."

"Yeah, well." Remy held out his hands for the pack of cards that Warren was riffling absently through his hands. "Poker's easier dan dis shit." He shuffled neatly and dealt out two cards each. "Texas hold'em."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

"Scott." Logan stopped the leader of the X-men as the others trailed out of the jet, towards the changing rooms, dripping from the torrential rain that they'd just been out in.

"What, Logan? I'm cold and wet, and a shower is sounding *really* good right now."

"This is the fifth time Creed's done this - show up, wave some weapons around, do some property damage and then disappear before we get there. I don't like it."

"I know, and I don't like it either. But we've not got any more information to go on. His appearances have been completely random. Ever since he escaped the prison in Arizona…"

"Without killin' anyone… it ain't right. An' it ain't _Creed_." Logan interrupted.

Exasperation coloured the team leader's words. "The detectives scoped the whole prison, all the surveillance tapes, everything. We _know_ there's someone else behind this, Logan. We just need to find out who. Someone is keeping Sabretooth on a tight leash, and someone with that kind of power worries me."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Logan lifted his chin stubbornly, almost demanding in his tone. "So let's go check it out. The feds didn't know what they were lookin' for. We do."

Scott pursed his lips in concentration for a moment, before addressing the feral again. "Whoever this is, guiding Creed, they're being subtle about it. I can't imagine that man being led. We'll set up a team for the prison, as soon as we're all dried off and changed." Logan nodded once and moved towards the ramp out of the jet. "Oh, and Logan…" Scott made a face, and Logan watched his posture turn defensive. "I'm not quite sure how to put this, but… I can't help noticing that, recently, you and Gambit have been sharing a room."

"And?"

Suddenly uncomfortable, the team leader had the urge to clear his throat. "And… well… I just wanted to make sure it's what you want."

Logan shifted his stance until he was fully facing the other mutant, fists reflexively clenching in his irritation. "Ya want ta know if he's manipulating me? Making me want him?"

Palms rising in a pose of surrender, Scott started to backpedal. "I didn't…" Scott began, interrupted by a deep growl.

"Y'know Cyke, truth is neither of us know where this came from. But if what I'm feeling is *his* emotion, then he loves me enough fer both of us ta share."

"Love?" Scott asked, nonplussed.

"Yes, Scott. Love." Logan pointed a finger at the other man as he said, "That's the feelin' you get when you look at Jean."

Momentarily speechless, Scott blinked behind his visor. "But… *you* were chasing after Jean not so long ago…"

Logan honestly couldn't tell if Scott was being prejudiced, or if he just didn't get it. "And that means I can't love Remy?"

"No! I mean…" The team leader paused and took a deep breath. "It's just unexpected. Do you plan on telling the rest of the team?"

Shrugging, Logan eyed the boy and said, "Don't see it's any of their business."

One of Scott's hands came up to rub the back of his neck. Suddenly, he had a growing headache to match the rest of his weary body. The shower was calling his name like a siren's song. "No… I guess not. Well… good luck?" Logan smirked as Scott turned on his heel and nearly bolted from the hanger bay. He shook the water off himself and headed towards the changing rooms.

-,-

Logan came out into the hallway, just as Warren emerged from the lounge, hands in the air.

"I swear you're cheating, you bastard."

"Y' a poor loser, Wings." Remy's distinctly cheery voice from inside caught Logan's interest - strange given Warren's proximity. Warren glanced at him as he stepped forwards, and some indefinable emotion flickered across his face before he turned and marched off. Logan stepped inside to find Remy shuffling a pack of cards.

"Warren looked chilled." he commented, wincing as the other man jumped. "Sorry." he muttered.

"'Were beatin' de crap out each ot'er while y' wern' lookin'." Remy smiled, putting down the cards.

"Did ya manage ta sort anythin' out?" Logan took a seat next to Remy, taking a card off the top of the pile and looking over the simple design.

"Oh, y'know. Long-term plans. Debatin' de benefits of a cottage in th' countryside over a care-home wit' hot nurses."

"You'd get chucked out if ya felt up the staff." Logan pointed out dryly, dropping the card back onto the pack.

"Hmm, hadn' t'oughta dat." he chuckled. Remy leant back into Logan's shoulder, drained after the exchange with Warren. "I jus' can' see myself livin' independently. Dere's always been people, even when I din' need dem around. Or I t'ought I din'."

"Yer bein' stupid. If it mattered, you'd manage. It doesn't matter, yer here and there's always gonna be people at the mansion. If ya need ta get out, Remy, we'll find you a place and you'd deal."

Remy sighed deeply. "Jus' din' fit int' de life plan."

"*You* had a life plan?" Logan asked, incredulous.

-,-

"This is the situation as it stands." Scott looked around the table, acknowledging each of the X-men in turn. "We know that Victor Creed is making localised attacks on structures and vehicles at completely scattered locations all over the country. There are no disturbances between the attacks that we can pin on him and he hasn't attacked any people."

"Have we determined whether the earlier attack is connected?" Beast asked.

"The Boeing." Jean clarified, as Scott's puzzled look. "Before he let himself get arrested."

"I hadn't thought about it. But the plane had people on board and so far he hasn't shown any signs of even approaching anyone." Scott replied.

"There could be more to his arrest though, if it were the case." Ororo provided. "He could have been hiding from someone."

"That's not Creed." Logan put in dismissively.

"Are we looking into the place he was held? The circumstances of his release…" Beast began.

"Were suspicious, yes." Scott completed his sentence. "That's the next port of call. We can't be sure of what's going on until we have more information, and Creed isn't letting us anywhere near."

"The feds took that place apart and couldn't find anything wrong on their end." Bobby waved the internal report in the air before throwing it onto the table.

"We have to assume this is mutant related. We haven't seen anyone backing up Creed, but we've never been there in time to have a proper look. We have to assume, given his good behaviour, that he's working under a greater power." Scott announced, gravely.

"You think there are other mutants we haven't seen yet." Beast stated, leaning forwards in his seat.

Spreading his fingers over the papers on the table, Scott answered, "I'm open to all possibilities. Sabretooth hasn't done anything dangerous yet, but I can't see that lasting. We need to get to the bottom of this before that happens."

"When do we go?" Bobby asked.

The team leader glanced at Bobby. "We're dividing into two teams. I want one group here on standby, with the backup jet, in case he attacks again. That'll be Hank, Jean and Bobby. Ororo, you lead that team, I'll take Logan and Betsy to Arizona."

"Do we have schematics?" Logan shifted his sight over the various reports that Bobby had thrown down.

"We have all the data that came from the prison, but I'd also like to go over the maps before we leave. I'm sure there's some pattern that we're missing." Scott picked up the map from the corner and rolled it out onto the table, adding a box of pins and some post it notes.

Ororo pulled the file out from under one corner of the map. She started reading. "The first attack took place…"

-,-

"LeBeau. I need your way with women." Warren demanded breathlessly, coming into Remy's room with a flutter of loose pages and dropping something heavy onto his desk. Remy forced a grin, as his heart threatened to leap out of his throat.

"Y' not de first man t' say it, mon ami." he replied smoothly, leaning back on his chair and folding the thick Braille pages shut on the desk in front of him.

"I am not your friend, LeBeau. Let's get that clear right now."

Frowning, Remy responded, "Bien, whatchu want, Warren?"

Warren glanced around the room, before asking. "Do you have a phone line in here?"

Two fine, auburn brows drew together in confusion. "Non, dere's…"

"Come with me." Warren picked up the book he'd dropped on the desk, grabbed Remy's arm and dragged him out of the room by his elbow.

Remy yanked his arm back and stood there, feeling adrift in the hallway but free of Warren's hold. "What d'y' want, homme." he demanded brusquely.

"I'm trying to get a quote out of Rodney's, for the plumbing in the west wing, but we've been blacklisted since that whole issue with Bobby pranking their workmen. And the secretary is being particularly… difficult." Warren grimaced.

A corner of Remy's lips twitched into a half-smirk, slightly amused at the other mutant's predicament. "She cryin' when you done?"

The blonde man's lips thinned and his tone turned defensive. "The woman was completely incompetent. How they have someone like that on the phones at all…"

Remy held a hand up, stopping the other man's rant. "So Remy's de good cop?"

"Something like that." Warren sighed, "Look, you're better on the phone than I am. I can admit that. I'm used to ripping people off, not getting ripped off."

Nodding, Remy said, "We give her half an hour, let all dat work you done settle in. You wan' look over de notes Remy's made?"

That peaked the other man's interest. Cocking his head, Warren asked, "How far have you gotten?"

"Sourced de list we talked t'rough. Tho' Remy t'inks he can get de gym equipmen' cheaper from outside de US."

Blue eyes widened in disbelief. "What, the whole list?"

"Directory enquiries, Wings. Remy ain' got else to do," came the snide response.

"And you have notes on these? The quotes and costings?" Warren asked, excitement in his voice.

Remy grimaced. "Notes, sure. Don' know how legible dey be. 'M waiting on a six-key, make t'ings much easier."

"And that would be…" Warren asked dryly.

"'S like a type-writer, but wit' keys for de Braille alphabet."

"Great." Warren snarked. "So between us we have illegible notes and a crying secretary. Well at least I have decorators sourced else we'd be in real difficulties."

"Remy knows all de prices, homme. De notes were for you."

Blinking, Warren's mouth fell agape for a moment. "What, all of them?"

Remy shrugged eloquently. "Le's go down t' de common room, y' can write dem down fo' y'self."

-,-

Logan stood up to get a better look at the map, which was now littered with pins and post-it notes, obscure comments and numbers written all over them.

"And that's all of them. The most recent one was maybe the most violent, but he still didn't go for the occupied building, and the damage he did wasn't structural. The fire destroyed a lot of government documents, but it doesn't look like he's targeting government buildings as a rule…" Scott sighed, slumping down in his chair and running both hands through his hair - making it stand up erratically. Jean reached over and absently smoothed it back down.

"There seems to be no pattern to these attacks." Ororo observed, tracking the movements across the map as they jumped randomly from state to state.

"This movement here…" Hank bent forward over the map and put two huge claws on the top of two pins several states apart. "It is most expeditious. We would be hard put to achieve such velocity even in the Blackbird."

"You think there's someone taking him from place to place? A teleporter or something?" Bobby asked, before stifling a yawn. Scott scowled at him and he bit his lip guiltily.

"Or something, undoubtedly." Beast mused aloud. "This could be the clue to how he was removed from the prison."

"Alright then, this is our lead right now guys." Scott stood back up. "Let's go through all the times and distances, work out what kind of time he's making from point to point."

-,-

Warren scribbled down the last price and looked down the page, matching it up against the list they'd put together.

"That's the furniture for the shared rooms, sports equipment and the kit for the science labs. We have a company willing to install the gas lines and wiring, I've got builders for the gym floor and you might be looking outside the US for the equipment. Engineers are getting back to me about air-con for the sports facilities." With a long sigh, Warren leant back into the chair and looked down his painstakingly compiled list. "We still have to source books and stationary; blackboard and projectors are still on the list, too. We need to talk to Xavier about IT facilities and potentially a kitchen in the west wing."

"Le's phone the plumber, neh? If we source de bat'room fittings t'rough dem, dat might sweeten th' deal." Remy suggested.

"Good luck getting anything out of that girl. She didn't know a U-bend from her elbow." Remy held a finger to his lips as he dialled. Warren rolled his eyes and went to pour another cup of coffee.

"Allo." Remy greeted genially. "I need a quote, chèrie." Warren sat back down as the other man started detailing what needed doing, mentioning the potential kitchen as well. He'd obviously gotten straight through to someone useful in the company, Warren realised with frustration. He'd been looking forward to the 'told-you-so' moment. "Oui, I'm wit' de same." Warren looked up, as there was a hesitation. "Ah yes, I heard dat he upset one of…" Remy's face quirked, as if he was holding back laughter. "Oh chère, I can only 'pologise f' my colleague. Some people find business so difficult t' conduct over de phone. I'm afraid my colleague…" Warren scowled as Remy was interrupted again. "Of course." Swapping hands with the phone, Remy reached out for the pen and paper that was on the table. Flicking it over onto a clean page, Warren picked up Remy's hand, ignoring the surprised start, and pushed the fresh paper underneath with the uncapped pen on top. A row of uneven figures appeared, only just offset by one line, followed by two lines of writing that did overlap completely. Warren pulled the page up before Remy started the next line. The pen hesitated over the paper. "If you t'ink dat's best." he said. "We're lookin' t' source de fixtures as well, for all de rooms. We were hopin' y' could recommend…" A smile and another line of text - this time a phone number and a contact name - were scrawled across the page. "Of course, chèrie." A new line of figures, this time annotated with titles like 'installation of pipes to bath first floor' and 'fitting of fixtures to kitchen'. At the bottom of this table he wrote in big letters 'fixtures -$20%'. "T'ank you, chère. We'll be in touch, soon as we get de go ahead." … "And you, á bientôt." There was embarrassed giggling on the other end of the phone that even Warren could hear as Remy put the handset down carefully and capped the pen.

"Y' firs' mistake was in tellin' her y' wanted t' speak t' de manager. Y' second mistake was in not believin' her when she say she *is* de manager." Remy pushed the pad towards him. "De first figures de ones she woulda given you. De second she wants t' give me. Dey have a sister company dat do de fittin's, dey give us 20% off, if we get fittin's done by dem."

"LeBeau. Sometimes I have to respect you." Warren acknowledged grudgingly. "Not often, granted, but still."

One brow cocked, Remy wasn't sure how to take the comment. "T'anks. I t'ink."

-,-

"Scott," Jean sounded as exasperated as the others looked. "There are at least half a dozen mutants I can think of off the top of my head that could achieve this kind of movement. It might not even *_be_* Creed in every instance, we could be looking at a shape-shifter like Mystique - with Creed not doing any serious damage we've already identified that it's out of character."

"It's not even too fast for some of the speedsters we've seen. It's just faster than jumping on a plane or driving." Betsy pointed out.

"Making lists of mutants that might be able to do this is pointless until we have more information." Bobby groaned, almost falling out of his chair with over-acted boredom.

"We need to get into the prison and look through those tapes." Scott nodded. "The two teams…"

"You know, unless you're planning on trying to find a way to break in, none of this is going to happen now. Not until tomorrow." Ororo interrupted quietly.

"What? Why?" Scott asked, startled. Bobby looked up at the clock, and jumped out of his chair.

"It's gone eight, and we were all up at six this morning. Unless the Professor's planning on paying me overtime, I'm going to get dinner." he announced.

"As a great French general once said, 'An army marches on its stomach'." Hank laughed as Bobby disappeared towards the kitchen. Jean and Ororo chuckled as they all started filtering out of the room.

"Oh, do you think Warren's started cooking?" Jean asked.

"You'll be lucky." Betsy muttered. To muted laughter, the X-men scattered for food.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

-,.,-

Logan strolled through the halls, too agitated to go to bed, but not in the mood for bar-crawling. He wanted to go and work off some steam in the danger room, but wasn't in the mood to be alone. Seemed he wasn't in the mood for a lot of things. Finally finding Remy in the rec. room, handling a pack of cards, he knocked on the door frame.

"Ev'nin', Logan." Remy looked up from the cards, leaning back against into the chair casually.

Logan stepped inside and leant against the door. "It's late, ya tired?" he asked.

"It's what - eleven? I'm jus' hittin' de bes' part 'f my day." The Cajun winked saucily in the general direction of the feral.

Logan grinned. "C'mon. I'm bored and I want to get in Scott's way."

-, .,-

Remy listened to the whirr as the danger room activated and watched the kinetic flares as shapes dropped into place around him. A wide panel lifted him up a couple of inches and he sank back down as the platform became spongy.

"What did y' call up?" he asked as the sound of air conditioning from the far corner started up and the danger room settled into its new configuration.

"It's your program, basic gym floor laid out like the one in the city."

"Yeah, I know it." Remy smiled widely and shook his head, walking out onto the centre of the floor with the confidence that Scott had been so taken back by only the week before. He started stretching as Logan stepped up beside him. "Dis place based on de gym back in N'Awlins, were we use't play. Mon père, he be usin' dis place all de time f' trainin'. Learnt t' do what I do best right here." He finished a stretch, and then spread his hands and shrugged. "Well, in de real one, 'nyway."

"Yer comfortable in this space in a way ya ain't in the school." It wasn't a question. Logan could see that much, just from the way Remy was using the whole length of the floor to warm up.

"Remy programmed dis from memory, cher. Know th' dimensions inside out an' upside down. Feel like home." Remy let out a long sigh and then took the breath back in to fuel a series of handsprings from one corner to the other of the floor.

Logan grinned. "So we can push ya harder here?" he asked as Remy paused after the sequence. Remy looked startled for a moment, before grinning even wider.

"Yeah."

"OK then. Warm up." Logan stepped back to watch how Remy used the space. He was now more comfortable on his right hand - the one more badly affected by the frostbite he had suffered in Antarctica - than he had been last time Logan had watched him work out in this way. The handsprings were fluid and square, and his elbow and shoulder were solid as he came into the movement, not showing any sign of weakness or lingering pain.

He was somehow watching with a new perspective, since things had changed so radically between them. In the possessive part of his mind, this lithe fluid thing was now his if he could only get past the barriers that Remy's past threw up between them. His abuse at the hands of who-knew how many men on the streets of New Orleans as a child had made a man's touch in intimacy something terrifying to him, and yet he still wanted to fight for this blossoming attraction. The Cajun had always seemed willing to take love from wherever it might be offered, but he'd hidden his dark history in constant and unrelenting affairs with women who meant nothing to him, and been unable to properly express himself to the women who meant everything.

Logan pushed thoughts of Rogue and her incomprehensible actions out of his mind, focusing on the movement as Remy stretched and moved with motions that showed off the near-feline musculature that allowed his unexpected agility. He had always moved as if he were on display. But these days the exposure was intimidating to him - his shoulders hunched down and inwards as if hoping he could hide all his fears and insecurities beneath that trench coat.

Moving around this gym, where he knew his surroundings and was sure of the movements he had started learning before even reaching his teens - Remy had, more than anything else, the confidence to be as much as he could be. He was so beautiful… But that confidence relied on the knowledge that no one could touch him, if he was always aware of his surroundings. His extrospective senses of movement were always working subconsciously, and he could move away from a threat almost before it had formed. Without his sight, Remy felt vulnerable in a way that he never had before; unprepared for that ever-expected attack. He needed a way for the knowledge, confidence and comfort that this place inspired to translate into the touches and interactions - the contact - that occurred in places that he did not know so well.

"Wolvie?"

Logan surfaced slowly at his name spoken in question, and realised that he'd been drifting in thought; Remy standing waiting for his reply. "Good, good. Now…"

"You gettin' distracted, mon ami?" Remy interrupted. Logan bit down on the automatic denial and snorted in laughter.

"Yes. Yer beautiful and ya distracted me." he replied lazily. Remy shut his mouth abruptly, fighting a grin. "Now, I had an idea on movement training." This newfound ability to make the Cajun blush was more than treat enough to entertain him while they worked it out.

-,., -

Letting his breathing even out from the warm up, Remy wandered across the room to the horse in the corner, putting both hands flat on the equipment and stretching out his shoulders. He knew this space so well, inch by inch, that his mind provided the dimensions before he'd even thought about it. He could move around here with a clarity and security he hadn't felt since he'd closed his eyes against the glare of the reflected sun on fields of snow, knowing completely and without doubt that there was nothing out there but more cold.

He shivered at the image and turned into the room, leaning back against the horse and willing warmth back into muscles that, only a minute ago, had been burning with exercise.

Logan was a warm spot across from him, moving through a storage room. It held pieces of equipment and mats in the original gym, but here held weapons. There were brief flickers of movement around his shape, and the noise of wood and steel from the door. He focused on that heat and movement, forcing the cold in him outwards.

He let his head fall back and fought to keep his feet, floating on the surge of kinetic energy he'd just pulled out of his surroundings.

"You alright?" Logan on his right, dull against the radiating warmth flooding out of him. "Yer flushed."

"Heat exchange." Remy replied, grinning drunkenly. "Y' cold?"

"Yeah, suddenly. What do you mean, heat exchange?"

"Took de heat out de air. Like Bobby takes water an' Scott takes sunlight."

"I didn't know you could do that."

"Neit'er did I." Remy grinned, wonkily, and slid to the ground.

"Why did you… are you high on it?"

"Maaaaybe."

Logan snorted, amused. Taking a seat next to him, he picked up his wrist to check his pulse and dropped it again with a hiss. "Fuck, Remy. You're burning up."

"You gotta card, cher?"

"No, why the hell would I?" Logan shoved his hands in his pockets. "I got a couple'a coins, half a cigar an' a bo staff."

"Hmm, shrapnel's not so good. Give me de cigar." Logan handed over the preciously preserved cigar with a grimace. The remnant was charging as soon as it was in Remy's hands and he launched it into the air with a shout. Seeing the brightness of the vivid pink glow as it left Remy's hands, Logan threw himself across the other man, covering as much of him as he could. The percussive blast threw them both into the horse and the piece of equipment went flying across the room into the wall.

"Woohoo!" Remy hollered, springing back onto his feet. Logan got up next to him and looked over the scorched matting and spring box in the corner.

"Yer insane. Certifiable." Muttering to himself, he headed over to the room controls to reset the damage done.

Watching him go, Remy wandered off to the side to lean against the wall, trying not to let the cold seep back in. The surge of power, unintended, had started a headache that he could feel pressing against the back of his eyes. He tucked his hands around his sides, trying to recirculate that burning heat he could feel pulsing in them. Sinking to the floor, he went back to studiously not thinking about Antarctica.

-, ,-

She was starting to get used to the looks. The smiles and the sympathetic nods she was expecting, had eagerly anticipated. What she hadn't expected was the judgement; the sharp glances and disapproving looks. She'd never needed approval. She'd taught herself that. She didn't *need* it. But now she was alone and those looks were harder on her than she'd ever thought possible.

Running from those looks, she took to her room, hiding herself away. Curling up beneath the covers, it was hard to remember a time that she had longed for company. Reaching out, watching her hand as if it were betraying her, she picked up the phone. The number came easily from her memory, but with the handset to her ear, other things came as well.

She put the handset down quickly, hearing the first ring muffled by the crash. Laying back, she pretended that she wasn't crying and tried to remember why she was.

-, .,-

Logan growled as first glance showed the mansion's hall to be empty. When Remy had bolted from the Danger room, Logan had assumed he just needed to get out of the enclosed space – he knew he'd gotten too close, and cursed himself for it. It was dark outside, starlight only just touching the lawn of Xavier's treasured gardens and casting the mansion in shadow. Logan looked around the doorframe into the kitchen, relaxing when he spotted Remy sat at the kitchen table with a cigarette in one hand and a coffee on the table in front of him. Quashing a vague sense of déjà vu, he moved to take the seat beside the other man.

"Why'd'ya even bot'er Logan. Jus' stamp 'cannot be saved' on m' forehead and leave me to de crows."

Logan frowned at Remy's tone. "I ain' tryin' ta save ya kid. Want ya just as y'are."

The smile was sardonic on the boy's lips. "Right; overly 'motional, weak as a kitten and t'rowin' a fit every time y' touch me."

The older man had to bite back a sigh. "Ya haven't seen me complainin' so far."

"How long can it last?" Remy wondered acerbically.

"It can last forever, if you just let it be." When Remy sighed and turned away, Logan's eyes softened as he stared at the boy. "Ya jus' need ta accept that I ain' tryin' ta change you, Remy. I'll take you as you are, I can wait."

"I don' want dis t' be what it is, Logan. I spent years holdin' back f' Rogue. I want it *all*. I just…" he laughed shortly. "The irony is suffocating." Suddenly, Remy shivered violently. "And why is it so *cold*?"

"It's not." Logan frowned. "You got a fever or something?" He put one hand on Remy's shoulder and pressed the back of his other hand against the Cajun's forehead. It was cold to the touch and Remy hissed at the contact, putting his mug down and holding Logan's hand in place.

"Y' warm." He sank back into the chair, with Logan's hand still pressed to his forehead. "Stay dere."

"Is this from what ya did earlier?"

"Never done heat exchange like dat before. 'S usually somet'in' I'd do, if I was fightin' an' too tired t' make charge m'self. Jus' happens, ain' somet'in' 've ever… made happen." Remy explained, his eyes closed as he savored the warmth of the feral's skin against his.

Concerned, Logan chewed on his bottom lip for a moment, before replying. "Drink yer coffee. You'll warm up. If ya don't, I'll take ya down to Hank."

"Y' sittin' comfy?"

"What?" Logan found himself, quite suddenly, with a lap full of Cajun, head on his shoulder and feet tucked in between his knees. Logan imagined his expression might be quite comedic, and pasted a scowl on his face for good measure as he settled his arms around Remy's waist tentatively. "Ya comfy there?" Remy made an affirmative noise and settled into his arms. "How did ya do it? Ya said ya made it happen, but you didn't know it would work?"

"I knew it would work. 'S like flippin' a switch. I was cold an' all de energy was right there… Jus' never been able t' touch it like dat b'fore." Logan wished he could see Remy's face, hidden in his neck. He'd seen the look on the boy's face when he'd taken all the heat out of the room. Remy had looked desperate. For what, Logan couldn't say.

"Yer not normally so cold, after usin' yer chargin' powers." Logan observed.

For his part, Remy was at a loss to explain what happened. "I don' know, Logan. Ain' never done dis before. Maybe it de speed of transfer, I got plenty cold b'fore 'f de charge is too big or out'a control."

"Well don't do it again, alright? Yer cold enough, and a blast like that's gonna do you some damage, if ya can't find cover." Logan helped the boy stand, and patted him on the back before ordering, "Drink yer damn coffee and get your ass to bed."

Almost, the Cajun pouted as he asked, "Where you goin'?"

There was a look of determination on the older mutant's face, and he said, "I got questions. I'll be up soon."


	7. Chapter 7

The science that introduces this chapter (I make no apologies, it is my one true love) is the basis of these two works. In my mind, if you wanted to destroy an empath whose main power is kinetically based, Antarctica or any other isolated cold place would be the way to do it. Whether or not "Erik the Red" was thinking of that at the time is irrelevant. The fact that Remy survived (and in the comics makes his way out of there with... his own universally displaced help... *is quietly bemused*) tells us all a huge amount about his character. There's little worse they could do to him... except maybe make him Death. *ahem*

That said, and I'm sorry if anyone is seriously allergic to science, there is sooome action at the end, on with the show:

- ,.,-

Chapter Seven

-,., -

"Hank?" Henry McCoy looked up from the microscope viewfinder and met Logan's intense frown. He gave himself a moment to adjust to the change in focus; as always, too long looking on the microscale made coming back to the macro surprisingly difficult.

"Ah, Logan. It's not often your form graces these halls, when we have no resident convalescent. Rare enough when we do, in fact. What can I do for you today?"

"I have questions." Hank blinked at the direct statement. Logan wasn't known for his preamble, but his blunt nature surprised him every time.

"I see. Goodness. Well, I will only too happily provide answers, if indeed I possess them." Stepping forwards, he beckoned Logan over to his office and took a seat on the expansive sofa that had made a make-shift bed more times than he liked to think about. Logan settled uncomfortably on the hard-backed chair by the desk, fidgeting for a moment.

"Gambits mutation, do you think it's stable?" he asked finally. Hank looked up sharply. He was always a little more wary of the mutations that had a propensity to lead to explosions and property damage on a large scale.

"Why do you ask?" he pressed, leaning forwards in his chair. Logan leant back,; more comfortable now that he'd gotten the question out.

"He did something he didn't think was possible today, and nearly blew us both to hell."

"What exactly did he do? Give me a full description and anything the man himself might have mentioned in the proceedings."

"I think he was having Antarctica flashbacks." Hank nodded encouragingly. "He took the heat out of the room, out of me, called it heat exchange. He couldn't hold the energy, so he made a charge. It was… big, uncontrolled. It took all the body heat out of him, found it hard to warm back up."

"Hmm, localising environmental kinetic energy. Incredible." Hank turned his back on Logan to go searching through his desk for a pen and paper to take notes.

"Heat's no good to him like that, if it blows him up after." Logan pointed out. Hank didn't look around to reply, already scribbling across the page, talking more to himself than to Logan.

"The heat, no. But his body requires kinetic energy as much as it needs food - chemical energy if you will. While he provides a lot through his own metabolism, the excess has to come from somewhere else. If there are no other bodies around to gather from, he is forced to go for gross absorption - less controlled, less efficient."

"Bodies?" Hank looked up, warming to his topic with a chance to explain it to someone else.

"May I presume that after this event the young Acadian showed more… physical affection than he has been prone to lately?"

Logan smirked, thinking about a lap full of Cajun. "He was all over me."

"Ah, if only I had time for a proof. The papers I could write… There is something that I didn't originally understand with Remy's mutation. I assumed his flirtatious nature was simply that - part of the way the man had been brought up. I have discovered that it runs much deeper than that - into his very powers. His kinetic powers work by allowing him to 'flip the switch' as it were, between potential and kinetic energy within an inanimate object." Hank adjusted his glasses, as he continued to explain. "But to do so, he has to transfer kinetic energy from himself into the object - much as it takes a surge of electricity to turn on a lightbulb before its consumption becomes steady. This makes him very cold, as it is his own body heat he is transferring, his own kinetic energy. As a result, he has a higher metabolism while he is in regular use of his powers; his body working harder to supplement that energy. He can also - and here's where the physical affection comes in - take the kinetic energy from _other people_. Now, I'm not completely sure how this works yet, but I think there is some kind of propagation stage - Remy channels a little energy into another being, who then becomes aroused. Their body heat increases substantially and, in this process of flirtation, he takes out more than he… puts in, so to speak.

Hank paused for a moment to catch his breath. "It must also be considered that an empathic being - and we are now quite sure that this is the true centre of Remy's so called 'charm' power - will always thrive under conditions where the nearest minds are filled with emotional warmth - whether lust, love or affection.

The doctor's eyes were full of excitement, enjoying the chance to express his theories. "He was literally being recharged by spending time with Rogue, or in a more platonic sense, Ororo. Or even you or I, Logan, who might touch him casually. This is why he is so alarmed by the thought of isolation, and especially isolation in a cold place, where his metabolism is forced to slow and he simply runs out of energy. Think of New Orleans in carnival season. Why… I cannot think of a more appropriate place for someone with this kind of power. Rogue had to have known these things when she left him there. The stuff of nightmares, with intimate knowledge of your power turned against you."

"So… you're telling me that Gambit was using Rogue to… propagate…" Logan glanced up to check his use of the word. "To propagate his powers." A brusque nod. Hank wasn't sure he liked the phrasing, but it was essentially correct. "And when he and Rogue were on a break? Or now, with Rogue out of the picture?"

"He finds someone to keep him company, or becomes generally more physically affectionate towards the rest of us." There was a moment while Logan considered that, and what it meant for him. Then he dismissed it.

"So what does this all mean for Remy? I can see you're taking this somewhere, Hank, spit it out."

"I think the disconnection between his charging power and his kinetic sense, possibly along with this gross absorption that you saw today, happened not when Rogue invaded his mind, but in Antarctia. I think in the absence of all movement and empathic distraction, in such a low energy environment, he has developed the ability to separate these parts of his gift and was using them to keep himself alive and search for help." The blue-furred mutant stared hard at Logan. "The ultimate survival tool - the ability to take what you have and make more out of it."

- ,.,-

Logan opened the door as gently as he could, trying not to make any noise. It was dark inside the room, but he was slowly getting used to that not meaning much when it came to Remy. He closed his eyes and found the sounds of Remy's breathing in the dark; soft, regular, but active enough to be awake still. He knocked on the door as he stepped the rest of the way in, and closed it behind him. There was a grumble of noise from the bed, but nothing else. Wandering though the room, he shed his clothes and gathered them up into a pile for washing. He'd made the mistake of leaving them on the floor early on, not used to sharing his space with anyone. Watching frustrated embarrassment colour Remy's cheeks as he stumbled on the discarded clothes had been enough to remind him to clear up after himself in future. The list of rules kept on growing, but they were breaking through them, one barrier at a time.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, knowing his own weight would disturb the bed enough to warn Remy he was getting in. Finding a corner of the covers as his eyes adjusted to the dark, he stole back enough covers to pull over himself and folded down into the bed.

Remy was the centre of a warm cocoon, and Logan found an arm and pulled it around his shoulders like he had the quilt, curling up into that warmth. Remy had a long sleeved T-shirt and sweat pants on, and felt like a little furnace to his skin. Logan let him settle closer around him and felt his breath stir hair across his shoulders. Remy could take whatever he needed from him, he acknowledged as he dropped into sleep.

Whatever he needed.

- ,.,-

Bobby ducked, as fire blew out a window of the derelict building. The only people near enough to get hurt were them; they'd evacuated the area even as Sabretooth had disappeared. They hadn't seen him get in any vehicle, but there was nothing to suggest anything more suspicious either. He pulled another ice slide out of the moisture in the air as the one he was balancing on started to disintegrate from the heat, and threw a layer of ice over the flames to dampen them. He had been working across the whole building, from the moment the feral mutant had blown the gas canister in the basement, even as the others started to pull the bystanders out of the way. He'd started off slow, to avoid icing anyone accidentally; but now that it was empty, he was just throwing ice into the space and letting it disperse itself.

"Bobby, in the jet now. The fire trucks are here; leave it." As Bobby slid in through a hatch into the jet, de-icing on contact, the comms. beeped out an alert. Ororo threw the switch as she dropped into the seat with the acceleration, Jean taking them away from the make-shift landing platform on the top of the nearby skyscraper.

"We've got another sighting. He's definitely not travelling by conventional means."

"Hang on, the others are closer. They're almost on top of him."

"I'm on it. Blue team, come in."

"_Receiving._"

"You're on top of Creed's current position. We're on our way, but…"

"_We're already in the air. Give me the coordinates_."

- ,.,-

Scott banked the jet suddenly and dropped in between the buildings that lined the narrow avenue. An empty car-park sat behind a boarded up church, all the other buildings with their backs turned on the space. The space was tight, but allowed a careful landing and the X-men team dashed out.

"Do you think we missed…" Jean began before being interrupted by a trademark roar, and Logan leapt past her.

"I would say not." Scott replied, running forwards, hand to his visor to break open the door in the plywood wall that Logan had vaulted.

Inside, Sabretooth and Logan were playing catch with masonry blocks the size of small cars, as Creed took apart the abandoned church.

"Jean, Bobby, make sure the building is clear. Logan, we need *information*."

"Busy, Scooter. You ask him," he ducked beneath a piece of cornicing. "who he's working for this time." Finally close enough to reach the other mutant, Logan lunged across the gap between them, hoping to pin the larger man down so that Scott could ask his questions.

As they connected, there was a decisive *flicker*.

- ,.,-

Scott gaped as Logan and Creed disappeared in front of his eyes. No distortion, no flashing lights or smoke. They were just *gone*.

"Jean!" he shouted.

"Scott!" she replied, emerging from the church.

"Did you…"

"He's *gone*."

"What?"

"I can't… I can't find him. It's like he just fell off the face of the earth."

- ,.,-

Logan had both sets of claws fist-deep in Sabretooth's chest and was driving him backwards with the force of the leap he'd taken. When they landed, he was going to have to retract the claws fast to get back into a feasible fighting position, but for now, there were just the adrenaline-slowed moments as they fell together and Sabretooth snarled at him.

Time sped up suddenly, and they landed roughly. Logan was thrown clear, already re-extending the blades he'd withdrawn from Creed's chest. He stumbled on a tree root as he span back to defend himself, only to see Creed draw himself back up to his full height and run a claw across a wide metal band on his wrist – almost hidden in his thick pelt. The band glowed slightly, and Creed just disappeared.

It took a beat or two for Logan to drop out of the adrenaline-high fighting state, but Creed was gone, no scent that wasn't minutes old and dispersing into the… he sniffed. The other scents. Not looking for danger any more, Logan just *looked*. He was in a forest, no sign of the church or dilapidated high-rises that they'd been fighting in moments before hand. No sign of the X-men, for that matter. The air was clean, chill and damp, it had rained recently here, and the air was far too clear for urbanisation.

He shuddered with the realisation that he had no idea where he was, and no idea how he'd been moved. He figured it had to be something to do with the piece of glowy tech Creed had been carrying, but it was nothing he'd ever seen before, so he couldn't even guess at its capabilities. He could be anywhere in the world.

With a roar, he plunged his claws into a tree. Why had Creed run away? It still made no sense. He'd been enjoying the chance to cut loose. Pulling his claws free roughly, Logan settled into a crouch, listening. Nothing but nature. He picked a sturdy looking tree and got as high as he could for a vantage point. Mountains – snow-capped – rose up all around him. A sharp valley cut out in the direction the lichen told him was north, and there was no sign of any urbanisation in the valley as far as he could see. Scrambling down, Logan braced himself and headed north.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

- ,.,-

It started raining about twenty minutes into Logan's trudge northwards, as he was listing parts of the country that might see this kind of weather at this time of year. The temperatures around New York had dropped suddenly as autumn had hit, but there hadn't been much rain, or any predicted at least. It had been raining here for days – the earth smelt of water and late season rot, and somewhere on the breeze was the scent of snow and ice. He was debating time travel, when he got a whiff of exhaust fumes. Following his nose, he broke into a run.

He met the road at a massive sign for a truck stop on his left, and beyond it a road sign that gave him a good idea of where he was. It was showing 100 km to Sutton, 130 to Palmer and 200 to Anchorage. He was in Alaska, and miles from any kind of habitation.

"Fuck." he sighed to himself. He trudged down the road towards the truck stop, feeling dusk creeping up on him as the temperatures dropped suddenly and lights appeared on the far distant horizon. He had to count himself lucky he'd found the road – there weren't too many of those around this place. He started to pat himself down for a cigar, only to realise that he was still in uniform. He grimaced – this was going to be uncomfortable. He wasn't carrying any cash, or any cigars and he was dressed in mostly yellow spandex. He pushed the mask off his face roughly and let it dangle from the neck of his suit with nowhere else to put it. He eyed the inside of the stop as he walked up to the ramshackle old hut of a building. It was wall to wall smoke, truckers and bikers. He grit his teeth.

He marched in with a look on his face that dared anyone to comment on his state of dress. Twenty pairs of eyes turned his way and a rough snigger started in one corner. The bartender leant forwards over the bar, a burly man with intimidating arms.

"You lost? No fancy dress parties 'round here." he grunted at the smaller man.

Logan scowled, biting out his reply. "Gimme a beer and a Cohiba."

"You got pockets in that get-up, friend?"

"No, but I got these…" Logan popped his claws and rammed them into the bar. "And a whole lotta need for a cigar… friend." He grinned menacingly, and felt the patrons of the bar take a step forwards in unison. He frowned. That wasn't what he'd been expecting.

"Get outta my bar before my friends ask you to leave, mutie." The man growled possessively, leaning forwards over the bar as if proving he wasn't scared of the blades. "The shack for your lot is 30K west. Back on your bike, before the trouble starts."

Logan snorted, but withdrew his claws. If Sabretooth was still nearby, the guys at a mutant-serving bar would probably know who he was, if not where. Might even be working with him. Temptation to work of the frustration of an aborted fight not-withstanding, he wanted to get the hell out of Alaska.

He stormed back outside and eyed the row of bikes. Looking up into the pitch-black sky and smelling rain, he spotted a new biker pulling into the parking lot. He grinned. Two minutes later he was racing west on his newly acquired bike.

He really needed a beer.

Hell, he really needed a whole lotta beer.

- ,.,-

"Fuck." The sharp expletive made Warren look up from his paper and scowl. It had just taken him an hour to walk to the nearest shop to pick up his paper. He'd only just gotten his breath back and stopped his heart hammering in his ears, he *was* going to read his paper in peace.

A tap turned on in the kitchen, and Warren rolled his eyes. The Professor had taken the report they'd compiled on preparations for the school and disappeared into his office. That left him and Remy killing time around the mansion until the others got back. It sounded like LeBeau was having trouble scrounging up lunch.

Realising with a sigh of annoyance that he'd completely lost track of the article he'd been reading, he threw the paper aside and decided to go and make a coffee. He could make sure the Cajun wasn't bleeding to death or trying to burn the house down while he was there. He ignored the head-rush as he stood up, knowing he'd pushed himself by walking into town. He felt vaguely sick, but felt justified in blaming that on the medication as he straightened and walked out into the hall.

Remy, he found as he stepped into the kitchen, was chopping enough vegetables to feed a small army. He glanced over his shoulder, as Warren stepped through the door, and it was such an unconscious gesture that Warren felt bereft for a second, before flat brown contacts passed over him without focusing.

"Y' wan' somet'in', Wings?" Remy spoke up, turning back to his task.

"What are you doing?" he asked, stepping in to look over Remy's shoulder.

"Makin' gumbo." Remy grinned, sounding highly proud of himself.

"Seriously?"

"'M' tastebuds been dyin' from all dis bland food. Need some *spice*, neh?"

"Your taste buds are long dead, LeBeau. I remember what happened last time you made this stuff."

"Ain' never seen d'Ice-man go so red." Remy sniggered, pulling a huge saucepan across the work surface and piling the vegetables into it.

'And you won't again.' wandered through Warren's mind, but he kept it to himself.

"Dis a calmer version, promise." Remy continued.

"Have you cooked since… y'know… recently?" Warren rolled his eyes at his own discomfort, moving to fill the kettle. "You haven't been eating with us."

"Dey gave us lessons. Dat's patronisin' shit, I tell y'."

"What were you swearing about?"

Remy's smile became a scowl. "Dropped de knife." Remy waved it in his direction. "Bastard t' find."

"And you…" Warren stopped, looking up as the PA spat out the two-tone call to the War Room.

"'S'at f' us?" Remy asked, baffled.

"There were two teams out, and they can only just have got back. There's only the professor and they don't need the alarm for him." Warren shrugged. "Might as well go find out."

- ,.,-

The difference between antagonising a room full of baselines and antagonising a room full of mutants was the predictability. Baselines might point guns at you, threaten with knives and fists, but here it could be anything from teleportation to being ripped limb from limb. He'd tried that, and it stung. To say he was a little more careful when he stepped into another smoky bar, just as full of low-lifes and drunks as the last, was an understatement.

This one looked a little more ramshackle, as bars tended to when their patrons could throw people through the ceiling when they got into a fight. It wasn't busy, but he still pulled a decent crowd when he walked through the door. He growled at the nearest one, a man with all-blue eyes and webbing between his fingers, and watched as he scuttled to the back of the room with a squeak.

He marched up to the bar and scowled at the woman behind it.

"'m lookin' fer Victor Creed. Ya seen him 'round here?"

"Don't get many costumes through here." the woman smirked. "'S not very subtle. You lookin' fer information, you buy it like everyone else."

Logan growled, but backed down. He didn't want to know what tricks she had up her sleeve to be so blasé. A narrowed pair of eyes at the back of the bar caught his eye and Logan headed over to find out what he knew. He sat down in front of a man with alien looking skin - nothing he could immediately put his finger on, but it wasn't normal. He smelt odd, too clean to be human. At least not the normal kind. The mutant cringed away at his stare.

"Tell me what ya know." he said levelly, taking a mouthful of the other man's beer.

- ,.,-

Scott looked up when Remy and Warren appeared in the doorway. Noting Warren's palor, he glanced over at Hank to make sure he'd seen it too before continuing. Warren, watching this silent exchange over his good health, scowled and stormed to his usual seat.

Ororo and Bobby came in last, Ororo catching Remy's wrist as she passed him in the door and leading him awkwardly to the free chair beside her own.

Scott scanned the room, acknowledging everyone and registering the ever-diminishing number of active X-men present.

"I wanted everyone present for this briefing, because I think we're going to need all minds on this problem. To quickly reiterate for everyone who wasn't in the briefing the other day:

"Creed was, until today, attacking uninhabited structures and property, and leaving before anyone could respond. There are a couple of incidences where he has travelled faster than is normal from one sighting to the next, but we had and still have no leads on how he's managing it. This morning he attacked an inhabited building. He was distracted enough that we got there before he'd left, but we still don't know how he travelled. He appeared nearly one hundred miles away less than twenty minutes later. Wolverine engaged him and they both disappeared. They were not in the immediate area, and Wolverine's communicator wasn't - and still isn't - working, suggesting they're out of range of any of the relay stations."

"Or that whoever Creed is working for has taken it off him." Bobby pointed out.

"What'ya mean by 'disappeared'?" Remy asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"They vanished into thin air. I watched them. There was no distortion, no noise. Nothing to suggest what happened."

"Do we think it's mutant?" Warren asked.

"Honestly? We have nothing to go on here. I'm not going to make unsubstantiated guesses. What we can say is that whatever or whoever is holding Creed's reins, he's starting to lose control. And now Logan is with them."

"So we wait for Wolverine to get out of there and contact us." Warren suggested. "He'll have far more information than we do now."

"Seriously? Dat's y' plan?" Remy frowned.

"Since when did the Wolverine need a rescue party?" Warren replied, exasperated. "Most of the time, he's better off without us storming in there and getting in the way."

"He has told us so more than once." Ororo added.

"I'd still like to know where he is." Scott put in, seeing Remy's expression darken.

"It may be possible to optimise the scanning region using the equipment onboard the blackbirds." Hank put in. "If we are in the air, then we can extend the range considerably."

"Would you need both birds?" Scott quizzed him, understanding what he had planned.

"It'd be faster with both in the air." Bobby answered for Hank.

"Okay, do it. But take a full team in one, just in case Creed crops up again. If he's started causing more than cosmetic damage, then we need to be able to respond."

The room started to empty and Remy side-stepped Ororo's arm, headed for the door.

"Hey, LeBeau. How long before dinner's ready?" Warren called. Scott glanced back, and was sure he could see Remy pale.

"Jeannie can finish it, I'm not hungry." he mumbled, before disappearing up the stairs.

- ,.,-

The streets were clearing for the night, lights in shops going out, car parks emptying. The people were changing too, becoming rowdier, more gaudily painted, more exotically dressed.

She felt comfortable here, more at ease with the people of the night. The mood was different; lively and free. No one knew her here. No one had known her for months now, but she was never lonely in the night.

Tonight, she wasn't just walking for the company. There was a meeting to be had. It had been so long since she last spoke to anyone that she worried she might have forgotten how. The house was on the corner - hollow eyes of windows looking out onto the emptying streets forlornly. She thought this house suited how she felt very nicely.

The man, who opened the door, looked the same as he had the last time she saw him. He wore a suit and his hair was slicked back in what she thought of as a very southern fashion. Despite that, his accent suggested his origins were far from the Americas.

She thought the suit looked alien on him. She'd seen what he looked like underneath, of course. She told him so, and he laughed with his head thrown back, like in the movies. She was just glad she could remember how to talk.

He asked, predictably, if she managed to make that phone call. She blushed and admitted she hadn't – wasn't sure she could. His cool presence calmed her, and she believed him when he told her she was being irrational. She promised she'll try again and he patted her on the head patronisingly.

When she left later, feeling a little violated and so much less comfortable about herself than she had earlier in the night, she resolved that it must happen soon.

After all, she was starting to show.

- ,.,-

"Remy?" The room was dark and warm, comforting as Ororo stepped inside.

"'Lo Stormy." A pale face appeared in the darkness, reflecting moonlight from the huge windows, where he perched on the 'sill.

"You will desist with that nickname immediately, do you understand?" she chuckled.

"No news yet." Remy didn't bother to ask, he knew. There was a brief nod, and as her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Ororo saw Remy drop his head back down onto his knees, hiding his face from the moon with a fall of hair and dropping back into the shadows. She took a seat on the chair and watched Remy as he wrapped himself in an aura of 'not-here'. It was like watching someone disappear; her mind slowly forgot what it was focusing on and slid out into the next distraction.

There was a flicker out in the garden and she was watching the bats rough and tumble over an insect in the night. She wondered what it would be like, observing in motion alone – whether the shapes would be more vivid against the cold night backdrop than the soft-edged shadows she could see in the dark.

"Who told Scott?" she asked the ever deepening shadow. There was a snort of laughter and the shadow resolved again.

"Who doesn't know anymore? 'Cept maybe Wings, t'ink I mighta heard a lil' more about it, if he'd caught on. He ain' one for keepin' to his self."

"Don't write him off, Remy. He'll wake up to this eventually." she sighed. "Please don't disappear. This has not been easy on you, I know, but don't disappear."

- ,.,-

The moment Creed set foot in the compound, he could feel the anger. It was simmering in the air like a living thing and he wanted nothing more than to crawl away. But he didn't. He'd been told to come back and report, so he had. Calm warmth spread through him at the thought of obedience, and he walked up to the office building braced against the malevolent atmosphere.

The office was on the top floor, and he ran up the chill metallic stairway without hesitating. He had no idea what was on the other floors of this massive building, and he had no interest in finding out.

There were lots of offices on the top floor - the eighth - but only one was occupied. Just outside was a small desk with a phone and a computer, and a girl sat there. She had lime green hair, and piercings through every body part visible, and possibly more besides. She glanced up at him with a look that said she didn't approve of him at all, and smirked.

"He's busy. You'll have to wait." she pointed at a seat that was obviously too small for Creed's frame.

"He said I had to come straight back." Creed whined, pleading.

"You made him mad. That means you have to wait." she grinned vindictively.

Showing all his teeth, Creed growled. "I'll wait."

It was nearly twenty minutes before he was let into the office, and the girl looked disappointed that her game had been spoiled as she waved him through. She stepped in just behind Creed's huge frame, leaning around him to see the suited man at the desk.

"Coffee?" she offered. He didn't look up from the ledger on his desk, but at his brusque nod she scuttled out, grinning widely.

Creed cringed back as he glanced up, as if barely interested in the other man in his office.

"So..." There were so many levels of anger in that word that Creed took another step back. "What happened? I left you with very specific orders. I trusted you to fulfil them."

"I was at both sites. I left both…"

"NO fighting, NO confrontations, NO ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS." the suited man was on his feet, face red, both hands on the ledger in front of him as if he were about to throw it across the room.

"I couldn't help that *they* turned up." Creed replied sullenly, eyes fixed to the floor.

"You know that's not what I mean."

"I just needed to…" Creed glanced up, judging. "to break free for a bit."

"What exactly did you have planned?" came the hissed reply.

"All I wanted was…" Creed trailed off.

"No really, I'm interested." he sat back down, gesturing for him to go on. "Tell me why that was such a brilliant idea…"

"It was only once… and no one got hurt."

"Do you think I give you these orders on a whim?" he asked lightly. "Do you think there is no master plan?"

Creed shook his head earnestly.

"You get one more chance. If you mess up again, I'll find someone else. Now go away. I'll get the next locations to you soon."

Dismissed, Creed darted from the room, ignoring the secretary's giggles as he went.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

- ,.,-

Scott was staring at the spreadsheet of prices that Warren and Remy had put together, mind blank. One team and both jets were out trying to locate Wolverine's communications device, but he had stayed back to work on these numbers, get them all straight in his mind. He knew that what the Professor was planning for the school wasn't right. Wasn't the way this should be done. But he needed to find a way to get that through to him. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate everything that had been done for him: for all of them when they were younger. But to recruit, train and use an army of children…

It had been exciting when he was younger, to throw himself around and go up against ever more powerful enemies with his friends at his side. He'd never even thought to resent being thrust into harms way: forced into fighting for the Professor's view of the world. Now, with X-men dropping like flies, he couldn't help but think this was no place for any children. Ever.

He jumped sharply at the shadow falling across his doorway.

"Remy?" he asked, recognising the outline. Remy's head dropped, and he did a quick double breath, as if drawing in courage.

"How'd you survive?" he asked quickly, but clearly. "On de streets, wit'out y' sight." he clarified.

Scott went still. "Not everyone tells it like that." he replied quietly. "That I was on the streets."

"An' you don' tell it at all. Dat say a lot more dan anyone else need to."

"You… you're right. I was." Scott looked away. "Come in. I'll find you a chair." He pulled the chair around from Jean's dresser, using the time to calm his racing heartbeat, and put it beside the desk. He let Remy find the chair himself, all but falling back into his own seat. This was something he'd found difficult to talk to Jean about, to have it brought up so unexpectedly had shaken him more than he would like to admit.

"Look, I ain' gon' shout about it, I jus'…" Remy covered his face with his hands, breathing deeply. "Dey were some 'd wors' years 'f my life. Facin' dem like dis… I wouldn'… I couldn'… How'd y' survive it?"

Scott sat for a second, trying to swallow the lump in his throat. "I needed it badly enough." he answered eventually, voice scratchy. "I wasn't satisfied with my life, I wanted more. When Charles first offered me protection, told me I deserved more too, I hid away in it because it was so unexpected. But it wasn't what I needed."

"De Professor… he has dis way'a offerin' y'sactly what y' want, an' den showin' y' it wasn' what y' ever needed. I was lookin' f' a way t' repent all dat time, t' pay my way. All I really needed was f' someone t' know what I'd done."

"I don't know what you're asking from me, Remy. You're dealing with this. You're exploring and learning, you're getting on with things. I couldn't do it. I just locked myself away and only came out when someone forced me to. I spent all that time ignoring everything around me and just focused on getting from one moment to the next." Scott stopped a moment, staring away into the middle distance. "The Professor didn't help me get out of that." he acknowledged. "He just let me do it. Let me learn my own lesson. It took Jean and Hank and Bobby and Warren; all of their best efforts to drag me away from there."

"If the Professeur fills dis place wit' future superheroes, dere ain' gon' be any room for de ones who ain' got a home. He's talkin' 'bout interviews, like he gon' ask deir parents permission." Remy tried not to sneer at the concept.

"It's not what I wanted." Scott sighed, "But I can't… I can't see how to talk him around."

"We in a position of power, mon ami. We got all de info. Question is, we gon' use it?"

"We've got to stand up for the street kids because that's where we came from, and everyone else forgets if you act it well enough. Act like the carpet was rolled out for your benefit. Like you deserve whatever good comes to you. Everyone forgets." Scott watched determination wash over the frustration on the Cajun's face.

"Trick is f'gettin' y'self, non?"

Scott snorted, amused. "Yeah." he glanced at the open spreadsheet. "We need this, Remy. You and I, we need this to be good for the right people. We need to get those kids off the streets."

"T'ink y' right, fearless. Tell me how."

- ,.,-

"Bobby, this is Hank. The program is running well over here, we're just turning south towards Arizona."

"I read you, Hank. I'm over the Canadian border now. If you take me through the modifications, I'll get my scanner up and running and head towards the black spot."

Jean glanced back as Hank started rattling off parameters, and then glanced over at Betsy."You looked tired." She mentioned quietly.

"Bad night's sleep." the purple haired woman muttered back. "Warren's finding it hard to find a comfortable place to rest, and when he sleeps, he dreams about Apocalypse and the Morlocks. Plus, whatever Rogue did with Remy's powers... It's proving hard to shift."

"I know what you mean." Jean replied, "It's like playing emotional roulette every time I go to bed. Who knows what's going to crop up."

"I have to wonder how Gambit is holding up, with his most recent bed warmer MIA." Betsy smirked.

"Betsy, that's a little harsh." The telepath admonished.

"Jean, you've got to wonder..."

Jean was quick to cut her off. "No, I don't. Logan knows what he's doing. And from what Scott said, this is more than a passing fling."

"Rogue was more than a passing fling. I don't think it did her much good." Betsy bit back.

Jean growled quietly under her breath. "Rogue has problems of her own. I don't think she was thinking about his fidelity when she left him in Antarctica. And then for her to come back again, as if to finish the job..."

"None of us expected that. None of us expected her to attack us all, and with Remy's powers – how could we expect that?" Betsy said, her voice dropping again.

"Maybe that's why it was so easy to blame him for it." Jean mused, eyes distant.

Betsy sighed. "He's always made himself an easy target. Everything turns in on him – that's what comes from his type of shielding."

- ,.,-

Yesterday, Remy had been ready and willing to face all of them, whatever they wanted to throw at him. He had been ready to stick his neck out, maybe even go down in a ball of flames.

Now he knew that it had been false confidence that had driven him to that display of extroversion. Without Logan stood at his shoulder, he felt trapped and isolated in his room: no more welcome in the mansion than he had been when he had first emerged after being brought back from Antarctica. He was cold inside and out and itching to escape.

His body knew what it wanted, knew it so well, but his mind quailed in the face of that desire. The concept of leaving the house alone was still terrifying, a weight in his gut, but he wasn't going to get what he needed here.

- ,.,-

The road was empty, opening out into wilderness and mountains on either side. Every so often a break in the tree cover gave him an unobstructed view of the valley he was driving though and the mountains that enclosed it, slowly lightening as the sun rose. In the darkness, the temperature had quickly dropped below zero and even with the sun in the sky, the temperature was only just beginning to skirt back into the positives. He pulled his mask back up to cover his ears and nose as he raced on.

He'd beaten as much information as he could out of the mutant at the bar, and then convinced him to offer up his sofa for the night. He had been slightly chagrined when the man's mother had offered him dinner. He'd never had an information source that still lived with his parents before.

There was no one else for miles on the single road between Glenallen, where he had spent the night, and Anchorage where an associate of a friend of the guy who had been at the bar had seen Creed passing through. As he drove, his mind turned to his most recent favourite pastime, namely Remy and what he was going to do to him if he ever got around those inhibitions. It passed the time nicely, because Logan was an imaginative man and the cold kept his imagination from getting the better of him. He had just gotten through undressing the tanned southerner with his mind, memory providing shapes and shadows and features to embellish the day-dream, and was just getting involved when Remy leaned back – stretching every inch of that lean torso into definition – and sat back up with a piece of board in his hands. Logan went to take it off him – it was hiding important pieces of anatomy – when he turned it around so that Logan could read the message on it.

"Handle with care". Logan snorted at himself, enjoying the irony. He couldn't even make it work between them in his head.

It occurred to Logan that communication was the real issue. Remy was reading pure emotion off him with no context, and all he had to go on was what Remy actually said and did.

Recent events in the danger room were a prime example. When Remy had flashed back to Antarctica, and pulled off a stunt with his powers that should have been impossible, Logan had known he was shaken. They should never have continued sparring. Inevitably, he had gotten carried away and trapped Remy up against the wall in defeat. He had known the moment he had done it that it was a mistake, and he had pulled back, but Remy had bolted immediately for the exit.

He had to remember he was working with a wounded animal. All over his body there were scars of remembered pain and fear. The problem was, Logan only found out about each one of these when it triggered a reaction, and that was something he wanted to avoid wherever possible.

He smirked to himself. What he really needed was an instruction manual to go with the sign that said 'handle with care'. Perhaps one with diagrams.

- ,.,-

His bed sheets were cold. It was all he could think about.

It was barely nine o'clock, it wasn't surprising he couldn't sleep; but he was tired - a bone deep lethargy which had swept through him as soon as the panic from the night before had faded. The automatic panic had been unnecessary - it wasn't as if Logan was his only defence against the world - and it had left him feeling stupid and slightly bereft. Logan hadn't been babysitting him over the last month, but he had been there.

Company, entertainment, a voice.

A reason not to go to bed and stay there, like a child hiding under the bed sheets. He had lessons to go to tomorrow, and any will to leave the house was failing. He had gotten into bed thinking that maybe an early night would help, but all he could think about was how cold the bed was with no one else in it. With a shout of irritation he threw off the duvet and headed to the bathroom. He had never slept in a cold bed out of choice in his life. Tonight wasn't going to be any different.

- ,.,-

Ororo was frustrated. It wasn't an altogether new experience, but she had to admit she couldn't remember life ever being this complicated before. Things around Xavier's mansion were generally quite simple. You worked against those who would harm mutants or those mutants who set out to harm others, beyond that all that mattered was the well-being of the team. They'd faced more dangerous threats than the one Victor Creed was presenting them now, and won through, but there was a distinct vibration in the team dynamic these days. Reluctantly, she realised she would have to call it fear.

They'd all had a glimpse of their own mortality – seeing Warren laid out on the floor in the middle of a hostile situation, the edges of his lips blue and giving no sign of life. And with the two people they relied on to give them their sense of invulnerability both missing – Rogue of her own free will and Logan seemingly not – the X-men were feeling decidedly exposed.

Moving quietly through the house, Ororo thought through ways of strengthening her fretting family. More than anything, she wanted Remy to leave his room at dinner time. She would happily continue sneaking food away to him, but it wasn't healthy for the group for any of them to be divided at the moment, and dinner time had a long tradition of being the place they all gathered to discuss the day: the time the team was at its most unified outside of missions.

Remy had obviously been close to joining them the day before – going so far as to prepare food for the group himself. The ill-timed disappearance of Logan had put paid to all his bravery, it seemed.

Ororo stopped briefly by the large bay windows on the landing, watching the late season sun set in the cooling sky. She appreciated the calming gesture as the horizon was shot through with colour for the sun's last performance of the day. She thanked the goddess silently, and headed towards Remy's room. She was decided; she would drag Remy to dinner despite any complaints. Warren might not approve, but it seemed the two had at least reached some amicable ground. That was no doubt due to the jobs that the Professor had them doing. He, more than any other, knew what disharmony could do to a team.

She knocked firmly on Remy's door – already preparing her arguments – only to have the ajar door swing open to show that the room was empty. The air was damp from the shower and Remy's favourite duster – not that Ororo had ever managed to discern it from any other she'd seen him wear – was gone from the hanger on the side of the wardrobe.

Stumped, she headed down to dinner alone.

- ,.,-

"Is there something interesting in that glass, or are you just more interested in the glass than the company?" Against the loud music, the voice was almost a shout.

He looked up, trying to focus through the soft haze of the alcohol on the figure beside him. He'd been entertained to find that alcohol had the same affect on his kinetic sight as it would have had otherwise. He was thinking maybe it had kicked in a little early, but then he hadn't had alcohol in almost four months now, save the one occasion he and Logan had gone out. There was definitely someone sitting beside him, and as far as he could tell, there wasn't anyone on the other side of that slim form.

"Sorry, chère. Remy din' realise y' were talkin' t' him." he replied, realising she was still waiting for a reply.

"Now there's a way to indulge a girl. Not even enough to turn the head of the prettiest man in the room." the woman sighed dramatically.

"Non," Remy replied smoothly, falling into this old character with ease. "'S jus' I din' t'ink such a lovely voice be talkin' t' me, neh?"

"Hmm." came the reply. "Flattery. I like that in a man. You can buy me a drink."

Remy snorted at the presumption, but waved a note at the bar until a tender appeared and asked what he wanted. He gestured carelessly at the woman at his side and didn't listen to her order, studying her figure. He couldn't make out her face, too fine a detail for a place like this where everything was moving and drawing his focus outwards. But her hair moved freely around her shoulders and, as she leaned forwards to take the drink, her profile showed off her breasts.

He chuckled to himself as he relaxed into the familiarity of the situation. He was in a bar, having a drink with a girl and checking out her breasts. This was right. This was comfortable. The girl sat back with her drink, perhaps studying him like he had her. He held up his drink and let her chink hers against it.

"So. If you didn't think yourself worthy of a girl's attention," she started again, leaning so close he could smell the cigarettes on her breath. "did you only come for the drink? Seems to me a guy doesn't come to a club to sit at the bar."

"Wasn't ver' specific t' de cab driver. Dancin'… 's not really Remy's scene no more." he smiled blandly.

"So what do you say we finish our drinks and ditch this place?"

It was with a severe wrench that Remy realised, despite the fact this was exactly what he'd come out for tonight, he was still desperately on edge. He hadn't even told the woman he was blind. He was just playing along to this game of normality, and he knew the moment he committed to anything, he was going to be exposed: left relying on this woman he'd never met before - whose face he couldn't describe and whose name he didn't know. He sighed bitterly.

"Y'know, I jus' came out t' spend an uncomplicated night wit' someone. Turns out, dere ain' much dat ain' complicated no more."

"Wow, an invitation for a night of fun such as no girl could refuse." the woman laughed.

"Sorry, chère. Not at m' best."

"God, man. If I threw myself at your feet, would you get more of a clue?" she leant back and threw her hands outwards.

"I… Chére, y' should know. Remy's blind." hearing himself, he was worried he'd said it so quietly she wouldn't hear over the music, that he'd have to repeat himself. But she replied almost immediately.

"And that affects your physical prowess, how?"

Remy spluttered slightly. He hadn't expected quite so blasé a response. "I…"

"You don't get beaten to the last word often, do you?" she interrupted, leaning forwards again so as not to have to shout over the music.

"Not often." he admitted, tongue-tied.

"Want to come over to my place for an uncomplicated night of sex?"

"I'd like dat."

- ,.,-

Dinner had been a dispirited affair, the two teams returning very late with nothing to report. They'd used the two jets to act as communications relays as they searched for Logan, expanding the central hub of communications that was the mansion to fill every dark spot on the continent. There had still been no reply.

They would have expected at least a sensor return if they had come across Logan's communications device, and there hadn't even been that.

They had eaten in silence, feeling bereft in a way they had never been before during Logan's absences.

Leaving Warren and Betsy to watch a film, and lost in her own thoughts, Ororo jumped as the phone rang in the hall around the corner. Thinking immediately of Logan she sped up, listening intently as Jean got there first and picked up the handset.

"Hello?" A hesitation. Jean frowned up at Ororo, handset to her ear, as she got to the bottom of the stairs. "Hello?" She pulled the handset away from her ear sharply. Ororo could hear the dial tone. Jean shrugged at her questioning look. "They hung up."

"Not Logan, then." Ororo confirmed.

"No. I'm starting to..." Jean began. The phone rang again and she jumped forward to snatch up the handset.

"Hello?" she asked. A grin flourished. "Logan! Where are you?"

Leaving Jean to take the details, Ororo headed into the living room to spread the news.

- ,.,-

Logan put the payphone down roughly. He hadn't even realised he was missing his communicator until he had tried to contact the X-men that morning. It hadn't occurred to him that they might worry about where he was - it was an odd reaction for them. The state of the X-men's forces at the moment was such that every small thing was a disaster.

He'd sold the stolen bike for a pittance - with no papers and no license he'd been lucky to get what he had. It had been enough to pick up a pair of jeans and a jacket to cover his uniform. The boots weren't quite so obvious under blue jeans, and he was saving what he had left for bribes if they were needed.

It would take the X-men at least two hours to get across the continent to him. He was going to use that time to get as much information as he could. It had already taken him an hour to get across town on public transport. He'd found the built-up street Chris, his information source from the night before, had told him about. The houses here were all low-rise and expensive. At the end of the long straight road was a flurry of shops and amenities, and then there was nothing but mountains in one direction and open sea on the other.

Chris had met his friend and the mystery woman in a bar at the outer limits of the sprawling centre, and seen her go into one of the houses when they were done. The question was, which one? They were all the same style and colour - thick walled for warmth in this frigid climate and with small windows. He eyed each one carefully before making a decision. Pulling his jacket straight, he headed towards the bar.

- ,.,-

She'd walked away from the payphone as soon as she'd put the receiver down. She felt like she'd made some huge achievement, finally she'd dialled that number and meant it. She hadn't meant it for long, of course. As soon as she'd heard that voice she'd frozen, and put the phone down before she could think to open her mouth. But she'd done it. It was closer than she'd ever been before.

The night-time streets were crowded now, Friday night revellers enjoying the mild weather of summer's last breaths. There were still tourists here and there - made more obvious by their 'I heart' t-shirts and shorts despite the encroaching chill that had locals in jackets now.

She liked this weather. In a big jacket she was just one of the crowd, drawing stares only for her looks, nothing else. It felt familiar, reassuring, to be noticed in that way.

She straightened, fighting the tired stoop that had been taking over her figure and trying to look interested in the world. She had made a breakthrough. Now to celebrate.

She headed out into the Florida night, feeling more like herself than she had in months.

- ,.,-

As he stepped into the bar, Logan saw the figure start to move before he recognised her face, and launched himself after her as she bolted for a rear exit. He tangled in her legs and pulled her to the ground with a painful crash. There were half a dozen shouts around them, but no one moved to help.

She turned and made to pull away, her face turning frightened as he held one of her legs and grabbed the back of her jacket as he stood up.

"Arclight." he greeted, hauling her in that ungainly way towards the door.

"Wolverine." she hissed back, struggling.

"Hey!" the bartender shouted as Logan shouldered his way out through the fire exit and into the carpark outside.

Once they were out, Logan released her, letting her fall back onto a car bonnet and stalking the short line to stand in front of her again.

"Where's Creed, Arclight, and what's he doing?" he growled, getting in her face.

Arclight pushed herself upright. "I've not done anything wrong. I don't want anything to do with any of you. I left that life behind, I paid my debt to Sinister, now I just want to be left alone!"

Logan frowned at the tangential response, but went along with it. "What did you owe Sinister? What have you done for him?"

"Everyone who's done anything for sinister leaves owing him. It's the way he works." she spat out, furious. "He always has people in hand, to do whatever jobs he needs doing. Not that even he bothers with Creed. Creed works for him willingly, for the perks of the job."

"There are perks for working for Sinister?" Logan snorted, disbelieving.

"For a pig like Creed, sure. There's always someone in the labs or cells for him to victimise. Sinister had no interest in his DNA. The man's practically an animal."

"Is Creed working for Sinister now?"

"Seriously, man. I got no idea." Arclight's eyes tracked left, right, looking for an escape. "Last I heard of him, he was next on Canford's list to visit. That's all I know." she offered desperately.

Logan could feel his hair stand up on end. And here he'd thought this was going to be a wasted journey. "Canford? Creed's shrink?"

"So he got to him then. I thought he'd be safe in prison. The guy was all set up as a businessman when he came to see me. Wanted some muscle as far as I could tell, but wasn't willing to pay a full price for it. It was when I was living back into Santa Fe. That he found me at all freaked me out."

"We talking about the same guy? Mitchell Canford -" Logan hesitated. The description he had been looking for failed him. The man was just so *ordinary* looking. "Brown hair, 5' 10, well dressed? Average build."

"Guess it could be the same guy. He did kind of talk like a shrink. Like if he was earnest enough you'd believe any shit he spouted."

Logan chewed on that for a moment. "When did he see you? I need dates, Arclight."

"I left Santa Fe in May. It wasn't long before that. Afterwards I heard they arrested Creed after some attack on a Boeing, for Christ's sake. I thought it was good that he was out of the way. Canford seemed like scary shit."

Both of them looked up as there was a muted roar of jet engines, and Arclight bolted before Logan could get a hand on her. It didn't matter. He had all the information he needed.

- ,.,-

The sheer sense of routine, of habit almost, was strong and reassuring. He'd gone back to a woman's home more than once since moving to the mansion. He knew it gave them a sense of control as much as it was convenient to him.

He sat in her car, this woman whose name he didn't know, and revelled in her sense of control. This was a dance he'd danced more than a couple of times before. He barely had to think about it any more, as meaningless conversation and soft flattery fell from his tongue.

He had been blindfolded by a woman before. There was no fear, no uncertainty for him here. They pulled to a stop in front of her apartment and Remy let himself be led. This was what he needed. Buzzing under the surface, here was the energy he needed.

He felt free and vital.

Quietly, he felt regret.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"What Creed has is tech." Logan started, as the others all gathered around the war room table. They were looking at the surveillance camera feed from the blackbird, which was showing a still frame of Creed with his hand over the bangle on his wrist even as Logan collided with him, blades out-stretched. If they hadn't known what they were looking at, they never would have noticed it. "He was wearing some kind of bracelet - touched it just before he took off both times. Musta been pre-programmed. When I hit him it must've affected the destination somehow." Logan looked over at Hank, seeing he was already puzzling out how that might work. "He wasn't based in the area we landed, it was just luck that I came across Arclight - maybe bad luck on her part. She's been makin' friendly with the local trouble. Said she'd had a visit from Canford before Creed went into prison, asking fer her services."

"Canford? As in Mitchell Canford, Creed's shrink at the prison?" Scott asked.

"From the sound of it. He was rounding up mercs He never gave her a first name, but it's one hell of a coincidence." Logan added.

"He was in the books as the last person to visit Creed, but the check-in clerk said he sent one of his subordinates." Betsy explained. "It was just a sign off - Canford's contract was expiring, and he made the appointment months ago. There didn't seem to be anything suspicious about it. There was a video that showed the lackey talking to Creed at the bars and then he leaves. That's all."

"There wasn't anything else in the prison that we could find." Scott added for the benefit of the team that had been putting out the fire that Creed had started on the other side of the country. "No sign of damage to the building, no odd scents or psychic imprints."

"Mitchell Canford has just spent six months keeping Victor in that jail." Xavier put in. "He spent much of his time coming up with loopholes to keep him entertained. I worked with him briefly: he was sincere in his efforts to keep Sabretooth off the streets."

"Maybe whoever it was that came in his place was a fake, then?" Bobby suggested.

"It still doesn't make sense - the man who turned up didn't break Creed out." Betsy argued. "I mean… there's no footage of Creed after that point, but that's not odd – you can barely see any of the cell from the camera, it's placed to cover the corridor. Whoever it was that visited, Creed didn't leave with him."

"Where has this technology come from?" Jean asked. "I think that's what we need to know." Everyone fell quiet, no answer to the question.

"If we can find his destination based on where he landed with Logan and the difference in their combined body weights, that might be a good place to start." Hank suggested. "I can get started with those calculations immediately."

"And still, after all this, we don't have any explanation for Creed's odd behaviour." Warren pointed out.

"On the contrary, Warren, if it is the Canford we know, maybe him staying in the prison and his recent behaviour are more linked that we knew." Xavier countered.

Ororo turned her attention to her feral teammate. "You did say that it would never work, Logan. That it did was a surprise to us all. If Mitchell Canford had some kind of influence…"

"I hate shrinks." Logan muttered under his breath, earning a glare from Xavier.

"And yet this one has managed to stop Victor from killing seemingly for several months now." Xavier retorted sharply.

-,.,-

Everything seemed distanced by the buzzing of energy. Remy felt filled, infused with it. It coursed through him, leaving behind a positivity he hadn't felt in what seemed like years. He knew he was grinning madly - but all that was on his mind was the feel of soft friction, of skin against his skin, the heat that surged through his core and the absolute control, the confidence.

He paid the cab driver and stumbled out of the cab, careless of his own body and with the slowly dawning realisation that he was really tired. He shoved on a pair of sunglasses carelessly, feeling like he was re-enacting events of long ago and loving it. The cab pulled away and he fished his cane out of his pocket, using the motion inside the mansion to gauge his position and heading slowly inside. He reached the door to his room without coming across anyone, slipped in and closed it behind him.

Feeling a now-familiar headache building behind his eyes he gave up on any thought of a shower, knowing he smelt of smoke and bodies and not caring. He dropped his cane onto the dresser and all his clothes in a pile on the floor.

He was making to dive into the bed when motion pulled him to an abrupt stop.

"Logan?" he asked, his heart dropping to his stomach.

"Whose bed *you* been sleepin' in?" came the gruff answer.

"You're here." Remy muttered weakly.

"I'm gone one night and you just have to go out there and remind yourself what you're missing? Ya can't trust me ta touch ya, but ya can trust some slut off the street any time ya please, is that it?" Logan was on his feet, standing so closely that his heat was bright enough to glare and cast everything else into shadow. One finger jabbing into Remy's chest, accusing. "Am I just a bed-warmer, Remy, until ya get yer confidence back and you're out there again? Is any of what you told me true? Any of it?"

"Y' don' understand." Remy growled, feeling his headache build with the momentum given it by Logan's anger.

"No. I don't." Logan fell quiet and rocked back on his heels, hands as fists at his sides, waiting for the explanation.

Remy could feel the wave of anger that was crashing out of Logan and over his head, and he couldn't help but take it all in. He deserved it all, he knew. He let it take him, shields falling away, not expecting that it would make itself his own. "Y' t'ink I'm jus' gon' prostrate myself an' beg y' forgiveness? I ain' y' dog, Logan."

Logan frowned. "No, no. *You* don't get to be angry. I need to know if I'm bein' played here."

His anger was rising, on the verge of bursting through his skin. Remy grit his teeth. "What d'y' want me t' say?"

"Ya can tell me all ya want is someone ta keep ya warm at night, and ya can say it to my face. Or ya can tell me ya want this, that yer tryin'. All I want ta know is that yer gonna be here waitin' when I get home."

Red eyes flashed unseen behind dark glasses. "I need t' blow some shit up." he bit out.

Logan drew a sharp breath, startled as Remy spun on his heel and walked out of the door. "Excuse me?" he demanded. But Remy was already gone.

-,.,-

"What happened between you two?"

Logan pulled himself to a stop as Jean stepped in front of him, blocking the trail he was following. "Where is he?" he demanded shortly.

"Logan..." Jean replied, hesitating.

"Where is he?" he repeated, stepping into Jean's space.

She frowned, obviously concerned. "He went down stairs. The danger room maybe, or Hank? Now what's going on? He looked furious."

Logan snorted. "Like he has any right ta be angry. Spends the night with some girl an' then expects I'll just sit there and take whatever he's givin'."

Biting her lip in worry, Jean reached out. "He..."

"Get out of my way, Jean." Logan stepped around the red-headed woman, dismissive.

"Logan... don't hurt him." Jean turned around to watch Logan head towards the concealed lift. He didn't reply.

-,.,-

Logan watched as Remy totalled target after target as they moved across the back of the danger room. The anger and frustration were clear on his face, and Logan felt blank, buzzing with an energy not expended, but nowhere near any emotion he could name.

He'd expected to be angry; even as he'd realised what was happening he'd expected to have to rein it in, find self-control. But he was just empty. Remy had done what he'd been expecting all along, and it wasn't a surprise to him. In some ways it felt better, assuaging the guilt he'd felt at being suspicious in the first place.

He wondered if the scowl on Remy's face was smoothing slightly, as he threw the last of the cards in his hands. Logan sat forwards over the controls as Remy sat down on the danger room floor, targets still spooling away in the background.

In that moment, all he wanted to do was walk away. The emptiness that was echoing around inside his chest was sign enough that he was hurting, even if he'd never admit it. He'd known he could never tame the Ragin' Cajun, never had a chance – all he'd ever done was fill a space in Remy's life while he struggled with events beyond his control. Now he was confident enough to go out there on his own, find arms to hold him through the night, he didn't need Logan any more.

Canford was looking like a nice distraction from this disappointment. The man was obviously up to something, and with Creed in his employ, would surely be a source of some entertainment. He needed to walk away from this. The healthy thing to do would be to walk away, now.

If there was one thing holding him in place it was the image of Remy that night, shaking and pale and terrified, telling him about his history with men, his past on the streets of New Orleans. Some things couldn't be faked, some reactions were too ingrained to hide. Remy had tried, all his life it seemed, to hide that part of himself in women and high living, but on that night all his masks had been stripped away. Logan believed that, there was no way what he had said then had been false.

And in knowing that, he knew that Remy had opened up to him, left himself vulnerable to those memories. Bringing all of that to the surface had made him vulnerable to it in a way he hadn't been since he was young – and now Logan's touches were reminders. The whole thing was doomed, really. How could either of them get past this moment in time; stop it repeating over and over?

He breathed deeply and stepped out of the booth, headed for the danger room doors. Walking inside he ambled over to Remy, who was still sat on the ground, and stood behind him. He held the silence for as long as he could bear it.

"You got an answer yet?" he asked eventually.

"I need touch like I need food, Logan. Per'aps more, I gone wit'out food before." Remy offered, answering a different question without turning around.

"And ya couldn't have gone an' cuddled with 'Ro?"

Remy stood up, turning to face Logan, "Sometimes I need to know I'm still worth something. That I can get what I need from someone other than family."

"I don't understand why ya couldn't have just waited. Just a day."

"It ain' never gonna be a day, cher. We ain' even close t' what Remy needs. Haven' felt so secure in mont's. All dat control, dat energy." Remy made a dismissive gesture. "'s like a drug, an' I bin teetotal a long time."

Logan thought about that for a long time. "Tell me why you were so angry, when you saw me."

"Y' t'row Remy way off balance. Feel wide open wit' you, raw inside. Remy finally get brave enough t' go out 'n get what he need an' it's gone in seconds. Y' din' even need t' say anyt'in'. Can' act wit' you, Logan. Can' pretend it's fine. Remy was feelin' so good. Y' got no idea…"

"And you don't get that around me." Logan filled in quietly.

"Y' were angry. Rightly so. All dat energy opens m' shields, 's hard to hold it all in. Remy took de hit, an' all de good feelin's..." Remy's hands mimed his good feelings flying away.

"Why are we trying this if y'ain't comfortable around me? Why did you start it in the first place?"

"Sometimes easy and comfortable ain' what y' need, Logan. Ain' what y' want."

"You want this?"

"I want you." Remy answered sincerely. "I screwed up. I needed… I can do better."

"You don't need to be better, Rems. Ya just have ta tell me what ya need. Ya gotta be clear about it. Else I'm in the dark here." Logan snorted at his own turn of phrase. "If ya have to blow shit up ta get this out of ya, this ain't gonna be healthy for either of us."

-,.,-

Logan propped himself up on his elbow as Remy wandered back out of the bathroom, his hair down and wet. In the half-light that was just starting to seep through the curtains, all the fine contours of his back were shadowed, somehow richer than in the full light of day. He looked stronger like this, in his element.

Remy opened a draw and pulled out a t-shirt. Suddenly hungry for touch in a way he was only just now beginning to be able to separate from Remy's empathic draw, Logan sat up and wandered over to stand behind Remy. Remy didn't jump, and even from his shoulder Logan could see the smile that spread across his face.

"Evenin'." he whispered - as if it were too late to talk at full volume. Logan closed the distance and wrapped his arm around Remy, careful - he'd learned to be so careful - not to press himself up against Remy from behind, or to trap his arms or to hold his hips. He just wrapped an arm around him, a simple greeting. "Wasn' sure 'f y'd be asleep."

"Just waiting fer you." Logan whispered back. "I…" he hesitated, suddenly uncertain of his plan. "I wanted ta try somethin' with ya. Are ya tired? We can try another day, I just thought…"

"Logan, y' sound…" Remy closed his eyes and stepped away completely. "'M leaking, 'm sorry. I'm tired and m' shields are…"

"Shh." Logan stepped back into his space and replaced his arm. "It's alright, so long as I know. Are ya shields always so shakey after…?" Logan trailed off, not wanting to mention the subject, already too heavily worked over.

"Non, 's just… I'm tired." He shrugged, leaning back against Logan. "Feelin' a bit like swiss cheese right now, an' y' still a weak spot."

"We'll leave it, yer too tired for this, I can see that." Remy rolled around towards him so that his forehead was leaning into Logan's collarbone.

"Y'ain' gonna tell me? Y'know it's all me - dis hesitation."

"If yer feelin' that, it doesn't make any difference which of us acts on it. Ya need ta sleep. My idea can wait fer another day."

"OK den." Remy agreed, folding the t-shirt in his hands and stepping away to put it back in the drawer. "Remy t'ink we bot' need some contact tonight." Remy said, answering the unasked question as he picked up Logan's hand and pulled him into the bed and around him like a blanket.

-,.,-

"Logan?" The world came into focus slowly, as he came out of his morning meditation to a pair of black-on-black eyes and an unassuming grin. "What were y' tryin' t' show me yesterday?" Remy asked, giving Logan time to surface from the relaxed state.

Logan thought for a moment. He'd planned to do this in the evening, when they were both relaxed enough to make it easy and aware enough to make it right, but now it seemed stupidly obvious: they were tired and stressed out at night, but in the morning - after he had meditated, once Remy had slept clear through the early hours - they were both rested, relaxed, awake.

Grinning, Logan caught up Remy's arm and pulled him through the hallways. Remy laughed out loud as they stumbled together up the stairs and into Remy's room. Pulling Remy into the room and leaning against the door as he shut it, Logan pulled Remy down into a chaste kiss. Remy snorted with laughter and took control, kissing Logan deeply, his arms around Logan's neck. He broke away when they started to run out of air, resting his forehead against Logan's and smiling broadly.

"Was dat y' idea?"

"No. Nice idea though."

"So. Tell." Remy pushed.

"I want ta make a map of you." Logan frowned as he watched Remy's face crease.

"Excuse me?" he laughed.

Logan snorted. "That made more sense when I thought it. I want to touch you, find out where I can touch ya an' where I can't. I want to know your limits so that I don't hurt you by putting a hand out of place."

Remy pulled back, lips a firm line, all traces of a smile gone. "Logan, I'm… I'm workin' on it. I don' t'ink…" Logan gathered up his gesturing hands and he fell quiet.

"It's desensitisation, Rems. We're gonna change associations of actions, contact, words… just change the way ya think about these things. We're gonna do this slowly."

"Desensitisation... 's a big word, neh?"

"So I've been hangin' around the professor too long." Logan chuckled, keeping an eye on Remy's expression, trying to read the emotion there. Right now it looked like dejection, his shoulders curved, face down.

"What if I can't do it? What if I don't know what my limits are?"

"It's a good a reason as any to find out." he offered quietly.

"How?" Remy asked, lifting his head and letting Logan see the unhappy curve of his mouth.

With a step forwards, Logan brought Remy out into the centre of the room. "I'm gonna touch ya, Remy. Maybe kiss ya, too. The moment yer unhappy, I need ya ta tell me. If you can tell me why, that'll help too, but if ya can't, that's fine." He watched Remy avert his eyes and bite his lip. This was looking less and less like a good idea.

Lifting a hand, he laid it on Remy's cheek and held still as he flinched away.

"Sorry." Remy whispered, finding Logan's hand with his own and placing it back on his cheek.

"It's alright." Logan replied quietly, stroking Remy's cheek with his thumb.

"I want dis, I really do."

"I know."

Remy closed his eyes when Logan put his other hand on Remy's cheek, but didn't flinch away. Logan leant in and kissed him gently, drawing small circles with his thumbs on Remy's cheek.

"This alright?" he asked tentatively. He felt the corners of Remy's lips quirk up under his hands.

"De kissing is good." Remy smiled as Logan snorted. "I t'ink… I need y' t' warn me if y' gon' touch my face. I need t' know it's comin'." Logan was grinning broadly now.

"This is good, this is what I need."

"OK." Remy smiled a little uncertainly. Logan brought him close for another kiss, moving his hands from Remy's cheek slowly up to his temples to meet on his forehead, and then over his hair to sit at the back of his head, pulling back from the kiss. He grinned at the breathless flushed look on Remy's face and wondered if any girl had ever made him blush like that.

He snorted to himself and pulled him right down by his neck so he could kiss his forehead without coming up onto his toes. He curled his hands into Remy's hair, loosening the band that was keeping it back.

"Don' pull." Remy whispered a little hoarsely.

"Can I take the band out?" Logan asked, leaning in to steal another kiss. Remy nodded once and shut his eyes.

A kind of fervoured, breathless silence fell over them as Logan's hands moved down to Remy's shoulders, and then over his shoulders to his back, fingers meshing for a moment to hold and then release. Logan tracked the small smile at the embrace that faded as he pulled back to smooth his hands down Remy's arms. He took hold of his hands, pulling them into his chest briefly before he let them go and moved his own hands to Remy's hips. They were close now, the silence filled with an electric tension, and Remy's breathing was fast and shallow. He curled his fingers into Logan's shirt and leant forwards to rest his head on a broad shoulder.

"Logan." he breathed. Logan pulled his hands away sharply, thinking he'd overdone it. Remy shifted to free his hands and put Logan's back where they had been. "Y' t'ink we can really do dis? Make dis work?"

"I'm not gonna push ya into this if it's gonna hurt ya. But I want ta make this work." Logan brought his hands together in the centre of Remy's back, and Remy leant into that embrace.

"We're gon' make dis work."


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

-,.,-

Warren had to suppress a sneer, though who he was hiding his disdain from was anyone's guess. A glorious forest path appeared to extend for miles ahead of him, almost but not quite disguising the tread-mill like exercise. Hank had told him it would encourage him to take it slowly, to not try and storm off at his usual speed, to imagine strolling through woodland and taking in the sights. He had never walked this slowly in his life, and the languorous pace was torture.

His feeble stamina could manage getting from place to place within the mansion at a more normal pace, as long as he could sit down afterwards and recover his breath, but as soon as he ventured any further afield that pace was far more than he could keep up. He wasn't fool enough to think that the drugs weren't helping too.

Running into Gambit on every corner was frustrating. He wasn't about to let that rat see him struggle for breath when it was _Gambit's_ psyche and _Gambit's_ powers in Rogue's hands that had lead to this whole sorry state. He was glad that Betsy and Jean (and, grudgingly, Remy) were all fine after Rogue's uncontrolled invasion of their minds, but this wasn't exactly the perfect outcome he'd envisaged.

He jumped as a squirrel dove close over his head and then fought to breathe normally as his heart refused to settle back into its normal rhythm. He stopped walking and knelt on the ground, tilting forwards slightly to take some of the pressure off his chest. He breathed as deeply as he could, pulling back from the black spots dancing at the sides of his vision. Just as his heart was skitter-skipping back to a sensible rate the door beeped out an access permission code.

He hauled himself to his feet. It wouldn't be Hank – after the first time he'd successfully completed the allotted time walking, the doctor had retreated from his sharp-tongued abuse. He knew the danger room bio-sensors would let Hank know if he was in trouble or over extending himself. The door slid open before he could puzzle over who else it could be, showing Remy stood by the control pad, frowning in through the open door.

"Ange?" he asked, scanning the room.

Warren frowned at the question in his voice. Remy had been using his kinetic sense more naturally recently, picking out individuals in a group and moving around the mansion near flawlessly. Now he couldn't find one man in an empty room?

He grinned as the artificial wind made all the trees around him dip and sway, realising the answer. The constant movement of this artificial environment was masking his presence. He stepped slowly forward, speeding up as Remy turned away from the door. He was only slightly breathless when he reached the door, and tried not to gasp as he answered.

"Remy." He celebrated silently when the other man physically jumped. Small pleasures.

"Putain." Remy hissed.

"What?" he asked blandly.

"Not'in'. Soun's like de professor, he be lookin' t' tell ev'ryone 'bout dis plan f' de school. Cyke wants t' put t'get'er a game plan, get ev'ryone on our side wit'out breakin' Xavier's confi'ance."

"X-men against Xavier's private army?" Warren smirked.

"Somet'in' like dat." Remy smiled to acknowledge the irony, but Warren saw the tension in him. The smile sharpened. "Y' get y' breat' back, or you need t' stand a while more?" Remy's voice was only partly teasing, and Warren scowled.

"I'm fine." he retorted, and closed the program with a rough gesture on the keypad before striding off down the corridor.

-,.,-

Scott looked up from the data he had laid out across the table as Remy knocked on his door. Warren was stood beside him, looking a little pale and breathing through gritted teeth. He pulled out two chairs and sat on the corner of the table himself, knowing Warren wouldn't take a seat if he was the only one offered it.

"Gentlemen. We have twenty minutes before the professor calls everyone to his office. I need some kind of plan, let's hash this out."

-,.,-

"How do you do it?" Scott asked from the doorway, playing for time as Remy and Warren gathered together all the data they had compiled for him. He was sure the Professor knew what he was doing, but neither of them would be showing their hands now, until this was all out in the open.

The Professor looked up slowly and smiled with a patience he didn't feel. It felt like there had been some mass betrayal in the ranks, and some of his most loyal followers had fallen away, to Remy and Warren no less. Scheming children.

"With patience, Scott. Like all other things."

"I've tried to get Gambit to contribute for years – as long as he's been here, and Warren will happily sit on his ass and wait for everything to come to him. I thought after all that has happened, they'd both be lost causes: too self-involved to even recognise that life was carrying on without them. Not to mention this constant aggression between them. You give them both a pile of paperwork that they wouldn't even look at twice if I handed it to him, and suddenly they're working together."

"They were both desperate to feel useful, Scott. And they're both intelligent men. Giving them something palliative wouldn't have filled the gaps in their lives that their circumstances have left them. I'm taking advantage, nothing more inspired. I hadn't expected quite the fervour they've shown, to be honest."

Scott straightened, his expression earnest as he replied: "I think this is as important to the rest of us as it is to you. We need to prove to the world that we can do more than fight, destroy and be destroyed. We need to make something. If the kids want to join us when they're old enough then all the better, but that can't be what this is about."

"I have never forced anyone to join the X-men, Scott. A lot of people who have trained here have gone their own ways." Xavier's gaze shifted to the hall behind Scott, and he turned to look. Ororo was stood behind him, smiling in the gentle way that Scott associated with everything being right in the world.

"You asked to see us, Professor?" she asked in her own regal way.

"Yes, please come in."

-,.,-

Warren sent the last page of data printing and stood tapping his foot as it fed out of the printer, too slow for his tastes. He could feel his heart hammering in the back of his throat, and swallowed back the urge to hyperventilate. He knew that Remy knew he was struggling – the walking was supposed to be followed by a resting period and he hadn't stopped moving since Remy had appeared – but that didn't mean he was going to give in to it.

"Is that everything?" he sounded breathy to his own ears, and sat down in front of the computer again.

"Y' make it soun' like y' t'ink I know what y' just printed off." Remy muttered. Warren rolled his eyes and pulled the chair over to the desk where they had laid everything out.

"We have all the data we put together for the Professor. The data for Scott..."

"It'll be 'nough. 'm gon' take it t' de office. Stay here, a'right?" Warren frowned, but nodded. He watched Remy sort his way through the piles of paper for a moment before grabbing his wrists and moving his hands out of the way.

"You stand there, I'll hand them to you." he said, fighting the wheeze he could feel rising up his chest. Remy snorted his disdain, but took the offered papers and disappeared out of the door. The moment he was gone Warren slumped down in the chair, tilting to open up his lungs and get some oxygen into his blood. He could feel the tingle in his fingertips as he started to wheeze and cough his way back to life and made fists to drive the feeling away.

There was a knock on the door and Hank appeared. He took the proffered mask without comment and sat through the inevitable lecture in the soft haze of warmed oxygen.

-,.,-

It took a little while to get the whole mansion gathered in one place at the best of times, and through they were a couple of hands down, this was never going to be the fastest assembly ever.

Xavier gave Remy a curious look when he handed the papers he was carrying to Scott, not him – and turned the look on Scott when he sorted through the pile and only half those papers were placed on his desk, the other half going back to Remy to be put at the foot of his chair when he sat down on the other side of the room.

Hank and Warren joined them last, and Xavier eyed the response bag Hank was carrying before taking in the washed out look on Warren's face and the dark tint to his lips and hands. His X-men were falling apart around him, he couldn't help but notice.

-,.,-

Scott waited for the professor to finish his brief before stepping forwards from where he had been perched against the side of the professor's desk. Warren and Remy stood up at the same time, feeling the attention of the whole room shift onto them. The professor fell quiet, curious.

"Scott?" he asked, a patronising lilt to his voice.

"You've said your piece, professor, now we'd like to add ours." Scott responded, asking permission for this mutiny.

"Please." Xavier invited, steepling his fingers and sitting back in his chair.

"We want to be able to choose students based on risk to life, not on power level. We don't want to be recruiters for the X-men of the future, we want to give these kids a syllabus based on getting them through their exams and reintegrating them with society. In short - we don't want to build your army."

"Scott, the focus in all academic subjects has to be mutation and control..."

"Are you going to go out looking for them?" Scott challenged. "The strongest, the most powerful, the most dangerous? Or are you going to take in everyone, really everyone, who needs help? Remy and Warren have been putting together some figures." Picking up the second pile of papers, Remy handed them around the room silently, letting everyone take a copy. "Most of the kids in psychiatric care, in juvie or in flagged child services cases aren't fighters – don't have offensive powers."

"The focus will be on those who are a danger to themselves or others, of course. Those who are at the most risk."

Logan snorted cynically. "I ain't here ta train you a new army, Prof. This was about protectin' the ones in need of protection. That's not just the powerful mutants."

"The work we do in this mansion has always been about maintaining the boundaries between unsafe mutants and humans and encouraging the interactions between safe mutants and humans."

"And we're unsafe, are we?" Warren asked blandly.

The room erupted into sound.

"Who's to say the humans are safe?" "Are we supposed to be the prisoners here?" "With training any mutant can be safe, it is human behaviour that makes people uncontrollable."

"Quiet." A touch of power in that word and the room fell silent. "I want to make the world safer for everyone, mutant and human. This can be done through education, and through prevention. We can only do so much. By taking the most powerful mutants out of the population *for education*..."

"So we're supposed to keep fighting and pay full attention to whatever the bad guys are doing, while we keep a school full of kids safe and put together a year's worth of teaching materials, and do all the teaching with no training? Oh, and we're supposed to do it three active members down?" Bobby managed to make it all sound like a big joke, but they all knew it was anything but.

"We've held the line with only four of us before, Bobby." Scott pointed out.

"And we knew back then that it wasn't going to work for long." Jean countered.

Betsy looked up as the others fell quiet. "I don't think Remy and Warren are going to be kept out of this, active or not." she said. She shared a wry smile with Warren across the room.

"Jean-Paul and Bishop are due to arrive in a couple of days time. Kurt will get here next month. I had planned to get more people involved, but everyone has their own affiliation. We might be able to pick up some other staff members, we're waiting to hear from some of the more remote sources. We won't be able to divide up single year groups, of course, there are simply not enough of us. Depending on the intake, I had planned three year groups – eight to twelve, twelve to fourteen and fifteen to eighteen."

"You're not taking anyone under eight?" Ororo asked quietly.

"Most mutations do not appear until puberty." Xavier replied succinctly.

"An' de ones dat do are de ones gonna get a body int' trouble." Remy spoke up.

"The Morlocks took in a lot of children – young children – who were on the streets because of physical mutation." Ororo added quietly. She caught Remy's flinch and looked away.

"Other groups as well, less wholesome." Logan added.

"There are enough of us with the three extra staff you've suggested to take on five or even six classes." Ororo suggested, frown deepening as she though it through. "Early years can be taken by any one of us, and physical education classes could be shared between age groups for less staff."

"Professor," Jean put in quietly, " By the nature of what we're doing here we're going to end up with some children with special needs; ones we're going to have to isolate until we have their powers under control. They're going to have their own psychological problems that come along with that."

"We will need some form of control over every individual case before any formal education can proceed." The Professor agreed. "The ideal would be to have someone stay with the extreme cases at all times, but as I have said, we simply don't have the staff. You cannot complain about the work load and then make more work to be distributed."

"What if there's an emergency with the school full?" Logan asked.

"There are a set of situation-specific procedures being put together." Warren spoke up. "The main aim is to get the adults into defensible positions and the kids out of the building."

"Surely they're safer inside?" Betsy asked.

Remy frowned at her. "How many times dis mansion been rubble on de ground, chere? We get dem out t' safehouses we don' have t' worry 'bout dem 'til fightin's done."

"It's a topic that needs further discussion when we have numbers to work with." Scott added, stemming a needless argument.

"Agreed, Scott." The Professor took back control of the debate. "Now, Remy and Warren are the school's administrators at this point, and are currently busy taking as much control out of my hands as they can…"

"Good job, guys." Bobby muttered under his breath.

The Professor made a disgruntled noise before continuing, "Anything you think you will need for lessons or lesson planning you need to list and hand to Warren. Any contact that comes in regarding the school goes to Remy. Complaints go to them, questions go to them. I am washing my hands of all administrative tasks.

Remy snorted disdainfully. "Like we din' see dat comin'." The professor ignored him.

The Professor pursed his lips into a hard line at the interruption. "All questions need to be asked within the next week. After that, we start looking for intake for next year. High risk from July, low risk in September."

"So..." Logan started. "Complaints and problems go to Warren or Remy but authorising decisions go to you?"

The Professor gave him a sharp look. "That's why my name is on the plaque under 'headmaster'. I'm trying to make this work, but I will be the one to fall if this goes wrong. You seem to be trying to step into my path at every turn." He looked around the room, his soft anger and disappointment seeping through them. It was no mind-control, no power, he was simply that charismatic.

"Professor." Jean spoke up. "Please don't think we're doing this to spite you. We want them to have what we had, only better."

"We were too young for battle, Professor." Hank continued. "It changed who we were, who we have become. We want for this younger generation to grow into whatever they're going to be."

"Do you think we did wrong by you?" the Professor asked quietly.

"No." Bobby spoke up this time, surprising everyone. "But back then it was just you and Magneto. There are more of us now, and we've been through the system. With the people in this room we've been through most of the systems that there are, and we can give advice to anyone out there."

"You brought us to this position, Professor. You gave us this opportunity..." Scott trailed off.

"We want to take responsibility for making it the best we can." Jean finished for him. "And for the people that need it most."

-,.,-

They splintered off into little groups of discussion, none getting very far from the Professor's office after his summary dismissal. The tense energy in the air had everyone flustered, and Scott knew they had to work it off before he could gather them back into a cohesive force. He nodded at Ororo as she wandered over to him with a smile.

"This is the professor nesting." she confided in him quietly. "He's making sure his family will carry on."

Scott nodded. "I can't help but agree with him in a way. It would be good to get some fresh blood into the place. None of us are getting any younger..."

"It's his methods you have issue with." she confirmed.

"His choices." he emphasised carefully.

"Go circulate. Listen to what everyone has to say while they're all so energised. Then bring us back together. That's what you do, Scott. You bring us all together and you share with us what we find difficult to talk about with each other." Scott smiled at the gentle encouragement and watched Ororo drift back out of the room. Locating the nearest cohesive discussion, he wandered over to Logan and Hank.

"We need specific systems in place fer emergencies." Logan was saying. "Specific containment fer the high risk kids – not all of them can go inta the danger room at once. This needs to be ready as soon as we know who we're taking on."

Hank scratched his chin thoughtfully with one huge claw. "Before, truly. What type of containment are you thinking about? There are technologies available to us..."

Nodding, Logan continued. "Fire, water, sound, some kind of blast room would be useful. I guess if we can figure out some kind of psi protection... We've never managed it before, but we got some strong 'paths in this building. Mixing them up with some uncontrolled kids..."

Scott left them to their discussion, moving to the larger huddle at the base of the stairs. Remy was leaning against the bottom banister and Betsy, Bobby and Jean were all stood nearby.

"I can't believe he's doing this, not now." Betsy sighed, glancing at Scott with a wry grin as he wandered over.

"He says things that make us all want what he's selling and then he tells us the cost. Training the new X-army? No thanks." Bobby said, eyes distant as if he were remembering something far from here.

"I had a list, of people with kids I knew who could really use the school. Whose kids would never get into a normal school." Betsy added.

"Jus' de t'ought 'f getting' dose kids off de street and into beds. Into schoolin'... T' pass on what mon pere did for me." Remy grinned. "T' have somet'in' t' pass on."

Jean looked up, "Scott – the Professor... do you really think he's building an army?"

"I don't know, but I don't see how we can stop him if he is. What we can do is make sure that the people who are in need of sanctuary can find it. We need to stop him going out there and finding the strongest, most powerful and most dangerous. This needs to be a place people can feel safe."

Jean took Scott's arm and pulled him away from the others. "How do we draw the line between safe for us and safe for the ones who'd be a danger to themselves?" she asked quietly.

Scott sighed, long and weary. His frustration evident as he replied, "I don't know, Jean. I just don't. I'm flying by the seat of my pants, and I hate it, but I don't have anything else to go on."

"He wants us to train up our replacements before we start to splinter off, to retire. I can feel the mood as well as he can. The X-men are tired and scared." Her brows were furrowed with worry.

"Then maybe he's doing the right thing. Maybe we need to be behind him. But we need to make sure we have some control. This is our home now, too." Scott looked up and around the room. "Everyone to the war room." He spoke up. "Let's talk this out."

-,.,-

Scott, Warren and Remy were standing in front of his desk again, and though he might have gotten his school pushed through, he couldn't help but think this was going to be a pyrrhic victory.

"You said yourself, this school isn't going to work without all our help." Warren said, taking the lead on this, ever the businessman. "And unless you start to consider our terms, we're not going to offer it."

Xavier's lips thinned in irritation. "Your ideas are unreasonable, you knew that when you started demanding terms. I cannot fund your own private social missions and leave the dangerous and threatened out there without help."

"There are eleven teachers here and one of you. For every stray we pick up from where-ever we choose, you get one of your chosen students. This is heavily in your favour, you must see that." Warren argued.

Xavier frowned, surprised. "I do, and it makes me wonder what the catch is."

"You don't get to vet your students, we will do that." Warren began, setting himself up for this like a sales pitch. "A group of us will meet them before hand, talk to their parents if the situation suits, ensure they understand what they're getting in to. You have to judge what you find on initial readings only. You may have an interview, but only after they've been accepted by us. Mutants already in control of their powers will not be considered. If they're in a safe home environment and in schooling, they will not be considered. You can day-school anyone you feel the need, but they will not get a boarding place at the school." Warren finished decisively.

Pursing his lips, Xavier cocked his head at the winged mutant. "You're taking a very personal tack on this, Warren."

Warren lifted his chin in defiance. "I stand for all the others, we're united on this."

"All of you?" Xavier looked up at Scott.

"Yes Professor, all of us. The three of us may be leading the revolt, but this is not an independent move."

The Professor glanced up at Remy, stood just behind Warren. "Idle hands, Remy?"

One fine, auburn brow arched gracefully. "Of course, Professeur. Bot' Warren an' I were trained t' have idle hands restin' on de cash."

It was difficult for Xavier to contain the slight smile his lips attempted to form. "A good point. Thank you."

"The terms, Professor?" Scott asked.

He glanced at all three once more before exhaling slowly, his fingers clasping together as they came to rest on the table. "It seems you leave me no choice. You can have your students, and control over their selection. I wish you all the luck in the world. Now, let's get to work."


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

-,., -

Remy sat back against the cold concrete wall, feeling the chill wind that scrounged the open ground of the rooftop and whipped around the corners. If he concentrated he could feel the buzz of movement from within the building, the far distant cars on the road below. The occasional siren added shape to the landscape he was painting, along with the smell of the city as it continued to move and swell and live even now, long after the light had gone from the sky.

He looked up, trying to decide if he could see anything up there or if it was the movement from around him that seemed to make the sky swirl with movement. Smoke maybe, from the buildings. Clouds would be too high up for him to sense, and the air was cold and frosty - a clear night anyway.

He sighed. Useless information, all of it. Things that someone else could tell just by opening their eyes. He wished he could tell them just how much they were taking for granted. How little respect they gave such a gift.

He wanted his eyesight back, so that he could take it for granted again.

He was drawn out of his maudlin thoughts by movements across the rooftops. They were in business; he was beginning to think he'd chosen the wrong rooftop.

The figure in the dark dropped onto the rooftop beside him, and he pulled himself upright and stepped forwards in greeting. Remy felt the other person's position change, as they pulled a weapon and he pulled backwards sharply, feeling the breeze of the staff as it passed his throat. The sound of Logan drawing his claws sounded far too far away.

"Hold!" Remy called out, swearing as he stumbled backwards to land hard on the ground.

"Gambit!?" came the quick reply. "I didn't mean to catch you off-guard… are you alright?"

"Daredevil." A quiet acknowledgement, tinged with a smile.

"It's been a while since I last put you on your ass; you're off your game." Matt Murdock tucked the collapsed staff back into his belt.

"Yeah." Remy sighed as he thought of all the things that had happened since he had seen the man last. "How do y' live wit' it, Matt?"

"Live with what?" he asked.

A clatter, loud in the night, as Remy's cane unfolded in the air to fall fully extended at Daredevil's feet.

"Wit' dis."

A heavy, startled silence split the air between them for a moment, and Remy watched Daredevil go very still. Shared grief flowed out of him as he took a seat beside Remy with his back against the wall.

"Who's your bodyguard?" Matt asked after a pause.

"De Wolverine. He's playin' seein'-eye dog fo' th' night." Daredevil smirked, turning for a moment to look in the Wolverine's direction. It didn't change his perception of the other man, based all on sound and scent, but the mask allowed him the illusion of sight, and that was vital for him to exist as Daredevil.

"Why am I not surprised that you could talk the Wolverine into doing that for you."

"What are y' implyin', Matt?" Remy asked, mock-hurt.

"You could sell sand to the Sahara, with powers or without, and you know it."

"Per'aps." Remy grinned.

"What did you come and see me for, Remy? I don't have any answers for you, and it should be pretty obvious that I don't have some kind of cure." There was no sarcasm in the tone, just mere curiosity and a bit of self-deprecating humour.

One corner of Remy's mouth twitched in amusement for a moment, before he turned serious once more. "I need advice. A second'ry power has taken over, an' I'm tryin' t' work out how t' use it. Dere have been one or two hitches."

Underneath his mask, Matt's brows drew together in confusion. "Why did you come to me? I thought you knew Xavier - wouldn't he be the more obvious choice?"

"Xavier can' teach me what I need t' know." Remy bit off, his lips thinned in frustration.

There was a few moments of silence between them, both staring sightlessly at the city spread before them. Finally, Daredevil spoke. "Tell me."

"It's a kinetic sense, connected t' m' chargin' powers." Remy began. "Picks up t'ings dat are in motion an' t' a lesser extent; t'ings dat are higher dan room temp'rature."

"So no walls, doors, windows…"

"Exactly. Avoidin' a punch ain' quite so amazin' if y' walk int' a wall after." Remy sighed heavily.

Matt frowned in thought. "And you're trying to learn to fight again? Remy… I can't see you convincing anyone. Not like this."

"T'anks fo' y' confidence." Remy snarked in reply.

It was Matt's turn to sigh. "Look, I had years to get used to this. To make sure I was ready before I took anyone on. And still I get beaten into a bloody pulp regularly. People accept this as my fighting style, they don't notice anything wrong because they've never seen any different. People have seen you fight, Remy. You're going to stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who knows you, knows your style. And you know as well as I do that most of the people who have seen you fight before wouldn't mind you dead."

"I jus'…" All three inhabitants of the roof turned to face the shed that held the top of the lift shaft. Daredevil and Remy stood and Wolverine loped to their side.

"It's comin' all the way up." Logan confirmed as he approached.

"An' dey ain' t'inkin' happy t'oughts." Remy scowled.

"I've been using this route for too long." Matt mused, half to himself. He turned to Logan and Remy. "These guys are here for me." he said with confidence. "You two get out of here."

Wolverine snorted disdainfully. "I haven't seen any action in weeks. I ain't gonna let ya have all the fun on yer own, bub." Without waiting for any argument, Logan grabbed hold of Remy's arm. "Come on, let's get you out of sight."

Desperately wanting to argue that he could hold his own, Remy followed Logan silently. Pressed against a wall, Logan held his shoulders for a second. "The wall at your back is the top of the lift shaft, you're dead centre, the edge of the roof is about twenty paces in all directions, there's nothing else on the ground. Just in case, alright?"

"T'anks." With a squeeze of his shoulders, Logan drew away.

-,., -

Daredevil took half a dozen steps across the roof, taking himself out of the firing line from the plant room that enclosed the lift shaft. He was cursing as he went, too lazy to change his route, he should have known this would happen eventually. But it had to happen when he was feeling shaken, with someone he couldn't help but now label 'vulnerable' not a hundred yards away, and the man who was there to keep him safe itching for a fight.

He listened as the Wolverine pulled away from Remy, trying to identify what it was he was missing in the interaction between the two. He'd never seen them together before, as far as he could remember, but he felt sure that wasn't how a man named after a vicious animal was supposed to speak, and the nervous double-time of his heartbeat belied the ease with which he'd declared he was going to fight. He couldn't believe it was fear for himself, had to assume it was fear for the man he'd so carefully pulled out of sight.

He couldn't help but feel a little at a loss. He didn't know Wolverine's identity in the real world, the day-time world where everything was a little more sane, and Remy had exposed him and left him hanging. He'd even given away his secret, though that had been known to happen before. Most of the kitchen's worst, the ones he faced on a regular basis, knew he wasn't operating off the standard senses, even if they generally assumed it was more rather than less that he was taking advantage of.

He kept up appearances, glancing over at the heavy set man (solid footsteps that even light-footed balance couldn't compensate for in vibration) took a stance directly opposite the doors.

"You can't guard Gambit and fight, you know. It's not safe for either of you."

"He's out of sight." he replied gruffly.

"Six men, Wolverine. Are you saying there's no way this could get out of control?"

There was a pause, before Wolverine continued, "Maybe Remy needs a bit of danger to prove to himself he's still in control." he said it under his breath, making sure his voice wouldn't carry.

"You're willing for him to get hurt to prove his independence to him?" Daredevil asked incredulously.

"Better than than him hurting himself." came the reply, a rustle of material suggesting a shrug.

Matt wanted to ask him what he meant by that, but heard the lift doors slide open and the interior plant door slam on its hinges. He pulled himself into the lea of the structure on the roof as he heard Wolverine's blades extend and the heavy footfalls from inside reach the external door. They weren't shouting or exchanging commands, but the door blew outwards and the guns were already in place and showering bullets across the rooftop in perfect synchrony. There was no cross-fire, every inch of the arc outside the door was covered. He lost track of Wolverine in the racket of the guns, holding himself outside the range of fire until an unheard command called a cease fire.

He heard two bodies hit the floor even as he was fighting to recover his radar from the ringing of automatic weapons, and he stepped out of cover and brought down the figure that turned his way with a solid blow to the temple. He caught hold of a reloaded gun as it swung towards him, and used its leverage to tip the armed man out of the protection of the plant room doors and onto the roof proper. There was a crunch as the man went down and he debated how long it would take for things to settle enough to call an ambulance. The last thing he needed was a goon with a caved-in skull dead on one of his rooftops. He could hear the clang of metal-on-metal inside the plant room, and slipped behind the door when the trigger click warned him of the escaping spray of bullets.

An arm locked around his chest and threw him out onto the roof as he made to pull back, and he only just got an arm out in time to catch himself before he careened off the side of the building. He landed hard and twisted to throw a kick out at the man highlighted by the sound of another spray of bullets. The bullets hit flesh – a wet, hideous noise and a sickly iron smell, and Daredevil heard Wolverine slam into the plant room's metal wall as the shooter scrambled out onto the rooftop. Matt didn't have time to worry about that fight though, the other man already on top of him. There was a metallic jangle and a box of ammunition, useless without the gun, was thrown at him. He knew a distraction when he saw one, but still the noise was enough to mask the other man's movements completely. With the shooter and the second man on the roof, Daredevil knew he had to be hyper-aware, and he dropped into a crouch as he waited in tense anticipation for the shells to settle. He picked up the scent of the man's sweat as the ammunition rattle-rolled away, the sharp gunpowder and steel smell of the gun and the polish on military-shined boots.

A footstep to his right - he threw himself sideways, reaching for his staff and flicking the end out as it extended. The extra momentum was vicious as it drove into the man's stomach and a second blow across the back of the neck knocked him to the ground. He was seeking the next combatant with all his senses when there was a short, sharp explosion.

For a moment, his mind dismissed it with the obvious – they were fighting with Gambit, and so Gambit was fighting. An explosion wasn't unexpected, and he knew for a fact that Gambit had tailored his explosions to be more light and less noise as soon as he had found out about Matt's specific skills. He'd been witness to a couple of Gambit's more effusive explosions and had been all but useless to the fight until the ringing in his ears had died back to an acceptable level.

Something niggled, until he was distracted by movement on his right and with a combined staff to the ribs and Wolverine's substantial paw bringing his neck down to meet the ground, the last fighter was put out of the fight.

He was shocked to hear the downright fear in Wolverine's voice as he scrambled away as soon as he was sure the man was staying down, with a sharp, "Remy, y'right?"

Putting two and two together with that soft tone of voice and nervous heartbeat took a little longer than he'd thought, but then it was late, and that was always a good excuse for this kind of slowness. And... well... it was the *Wolverine*. This wasn't exactly on his list of expected behaviour. He followed Wolverine around the corner, hearing Gambit's harsh breathing and hearing the smile in it just as clearly, and wondered when this had happened.

-,., -

Logan's heart had dropped to his stomach when he had seen the brilliant pink flash of Remy's explosion reflect off the building in front of him. He'd taken long enough to slam the last fighter into the ground by his throat before turning and running across the rooftop, calling for Remy. They'd missed one. How had they missed one?

Remy was down on one knee, a spread of cards in his hand and staff extended in the other, and his attacker was out cold a few yards away with a singed flack jacket. Logan took in the wide grin and wandered over as Remy stood back up in a fluid movement. He glanced over his shoulder as Daredevil appeared and let the adrenaline buzz from the last few minutes soak through him.

"Remy," Matt continued, as if nothing had interrupted their conversation. "come around tomorrow – I've got a clear morning and no case work I can't put aside for an hour. We'll talk, but I don't know what I can tell you."

"Merci, Matt." Remy replied, and Logan didn't miss the tension that leaked out of him at that. He couldn't help but think all Remy really needed was to talk to someone who understood his situation.

"I can get someone to pick you up if you need." Matt offered.

"I'll bring him." Logan replied sharply. Matt's grin threw him slightly, as if that had been what he was expecting to hear.

"Great. Now get off my rooftop."

-,., -

He was existing as waves of self (in) ripples stretching outwards from his centre (out) and touching everything as they (in) moved softly through his world (out).

The stillness in his centre was translated outwards as his consciousness spread in concentric circles through the space, absorbing the energy of every tiny quiver and breath, electrical buzz and tick.

Breathe in, out.

The waves of his self slowed, the surface settling after the sudden spread, like a drop of water falling into a pool. Only existing until the surface is still again.

Breathe in, out.

Still a waver here and there. He was not quite the pool yet. Something was still… (Breathe in) something… (breathe in).

Remy shot upright as his dream threw him roughly from sleep, gasping for breath. Logan sat up more slowly beside him, one hand on his shoulder. Remy sought out the thrashing movement that had pulled him awake – not sure if he had been dreaming. The positions and directions seemed wrong to him, no longer lying down, everything turned by ninety degrees.

He found the point he had been focused on before, finding a slow rhythmic rocking on his radar. Something rocking back and forth, something cold, and highlighted however briefly by its movement alone. Something or someone.

"Bobby?"

Logan snorted at his side. "Wassat?"

"He was dreamin', nightmare woke him." Remy replied quietly.

"Not likely." Logan replied.

"Non, 's Bobby. Wha's Bobby dreamin' 'bout?"

-,., -

"Sand sales man." Remy's voice, accent flat, travelled into the corridor through the open door. Warren stepped into the office, curious, as Remy continued. "That's right, sand salesman, now if you could just put me through to Mr. Murdock, we can complete our sale." This wasn't the first time Warren had heard Remy soften his accent for a phone call, but he was baffled by it as always. If the man *could* drop such a... well it was almost a speech impediment at times – but an accent all the same, why didn't he just stop using it? It would make everyone's life easier if they didn't have to spend half the time translating. The accent picked back up again when someone new came on the line. "Yeah, yeah, dis make y' laugh more, Murdock. Remy don' know where y' live."

Realising he was all but eavesdropping, Warren stepped fully into the room and leant over Remy to flick the computer on, heading out to the kitchen for the morning's first coffee as it booted up.

"Oui, mais... las' time Remy came in t'rough y' window..." was all Warren heard as he wandered down the hall.

-,., -

In New York, the second beer had Remy relaxed enough to explain most of what had happened, and the third took him just over the line of being able to talk about Rogue's part in it all. Matt had been quietly sympathetic through-out and waited for Remy to finish before asking him to explain the kinetic power he had mentioned.

"It's somet'in's been dere all 'long. Jus' never had control b'fore. If I concentrate, I could always see de heat or energy – kinetic energy – in everyt'in'. But concentratin' on anyt'in' too hard... 'd jus' push it wit'out meanin' an' den it explodes. After Antarctica, it don' anymore. 'S jus' like it ain' connected."

"Are you saying you could charge from a distance before? Using this... sense?" Daredevil asked. He had been witness to Gambit's powers before, but he'd always assumed he had to be touching something to charge it.

"When firs' started t' really use de chargin' powers, Remy could charge jus' lookin' at somet'in'. Got harder de furt'er away from N'Awlins he got. Los' it jus' after joinin' de X-men. De... de sense... it was random, too dangerous f' fightin' wit'. Too dangerous f' t' be any use."

Matt frowned. He didn't remember Remy's tendency for third-person slips being quite so random. He used it as a defensive mechanism when he was stressed, he didn't when he wasn't. While he could understand Remy being stressed, could hear it in his voice and heartbeat, that didn't explain the fluctuations in his language he was hearing now. And three beers was definitely not enough to get the man drunk. "Can you still charge objects without touching?" he asked, trying to keep focused on the point at hand. "Have you tried?"

Remy fell quiet, a little stunned. "Guess I was jus' so happy it din' work... hadn' t'ought 'bout tryin' t' make it work dat way."

"Well... don't try it in my place, all right?" Matt laughed.

Remy snorted. "Sure."

"Alright." Matt sat forwards in his chair. "So explain it to me. Tell me what you see."

"Heat, energy." Remy replied.

"I need more than that. All forms of energy, or just kinetic? Is it gradiated by quantity or distance or heat? Is it focused, can you see detail?" Matt waited a minute, still trying to put his finger on something in Remy's voice that he couldn't quite identify.

"I can'..." Remy shook his head.

Matt's eyes narrowed. "Okay, a simpler one." He interrupted before Remy could continue. "Are you getting headaches? You seem off, not quite with it." Remy was quiet for a long moment, but Matt had heard the hesitation in his breathing. If he was right, he could wait for Remy's reply.

"I ain' tol' no-one." he said at last. "T'ink maybe M. Bete wan' t' keep me in his lab a while, non?"

"And no one else has noticed?"

"Guess not." An elegant shrug, shirt moving across the seat back.

"Not even Wolverine?" Matt held back a smirk.

Remy snorted in laughter. "What y' implyin', cher."

-,., -

"Is he here yet?" Kurt arrived with that non-sequitur late noon the next day, while most of the X-men were gathered in the kitchen after a long morning training session.

While nothing as off-the-cuff as the first training session Remy had managed to get himself involved in since his off duty status, both Remy and Warren had taken to sneaking into the danger room for the off chance of something more interesting than the paperwork Xavier had them doing for the NYS Association of Independent Schools and every other accrediting group that felt they had some right to know about new private schools in the state.

Full greetings for the German proceeded before his question could be answered with one of their own.

"I was lucky to meet Herr Beaubier in the airport this morning and challenged him to a small race." Kurt explained.

"So you BAMF-ed here and Jean-Paul ran? Surely that's not fair." Bobby laughed.

"Herr Beaubier seemed to think ze favour would fall to him." Kurt grinned.

"Obviously…" The doorbell rang. "Not." Bobby finished to laughter, as Jean moved to let the Canadian mutant in.

Further greetings followed as an out of breath Jean-Paul congratulated Kurt on his clear victory. He explained that after the cramped quarters of the aeroplane he probably would have run the distance anyway, and their bags would follow.

It was only when the mayhem of greetings had settled into general chatter about the school and the work still in progress that Jean-Paul took a seat beside Remy and leant over to ask the question that had been weighing on his mind since the first greetings.

"LeBeau, Kurt and I were comparing notes in the airport, and you were the most recent casualty we knew of. It's good to see you alive and well."

Remy snorted. "Isn't someone always dead around here? Wouldn' wan' t' break wit' tradition."

"I have to admit, it's a novelty when it isn't Jean." Jean-Paul teased.

That brought a smirk to the Cajun's face. "Jus' tryin' t' mix t'ings up a bit."

The Canadian sobered as he asked, "You escaped the event unscathed?"

Remy hesitated in replying, desperately wanting to keep up this comfortable ruse. The answer was always 'of course'. The X-men were never scathed, never scarred, never broken.

"Not dis time." he replied quietly, seeking Warren in the room, feeling this was news to be broken all at once. Jean-Paul seemed to understand his hesitation and fell quiet.

Remy's attention was drawn by Scott's sharp - "Seriously?" - and he felt the tension in the room ratchet to match his own. "Well, you better sit down then, and we'll update you." Scott took a seat on the other side of Remy and waited as the others settled. "Do you want to stick around for this?" he asked under his breath as the others either settled or excused themselves.

Searching around the table Remy found Warren, Bobby, Logan and one of the girls - he was pressed to tell which as they'd all had their hair down that morning. Kurt sat down last, obviously hesitant, and Remy was amused to associate him with the quick, ceaseless movement that was his tail at his back. He perched on the chair edge to allow that extra limb free range of movement.

"Remy?"

He realised Scott was still waiting for an answer. "Know all de sordid details a'ready, neh?"

Scott nodded once, a brusque movement and clear in Remy's sight, and then turned to the table.


	13. Chapter 13 mild

AN: Please note, this is where the PG version deviates from the full version.

-, .,-

Chapter 13

-,., -

Remy was sitting in the lounge, not hiding really, just away from the others. He couldn't help feeling betrayed - by Rogue, by his body and the world. Everything that had been said had been reasonable. Rogue had made a decision that no one approved of or understood, but they'd believed her when she'd said he was dead. They had left his body behind, giving preference to the ones they could save. When they'd gotten back to the mansion, Joseph had left thinking himself in some way responsible for the death of an X-man, however out of favour with Rogue Gambit had been.

Rogue had left mere weeks later with no word or explanation, but the professor had seemed unconcerned and so when Remy had surfaced - barely alive - a few days after that, they had assumed he had suggested she leave to hide her shame. Not to punish her, but to protect her.

When she had returned, it had been to attack the whole mansion with what seemed to be Remy's powers - suggesting that she'd had them since she absorbed him in Antarctica. An attempt to bring her back in - Warren had sighed something that sounded like 'half-assed revenge mission' - had led to Warren's long-term removal from duty. Rogue hadn't been seen since.

The discussion was all on facts he knew, though explaining his loss of sight was no more painful than Hank's overemphasis that he still had hope it would heal naturally; that it was simply the sensitive nature of Remy's retina that had made such a temporary injury so long-lasting.

Kurt and Jean-Paul expressed their sympathies whilst making it very clear they had never had to deal with such a situation before, leaving all of them distinctly uncomfortable. It didn't help that, when leaving the table, Remy had knocked over a misplaced glass, leaving him to fume silently as he stood in a sea of glass shards while it was cleared enough for him to move away in his bare feet.

"Remy?" The Professor's voice interrupted his daydreaming, and he looked up sharply, guiltily.

"Professeur," he replied with a wry grin. "Anyt'in' I can help y' wit'?"

"When you were trained by the thieves guild…" Xavier stopped as Remy hissed, immediately defensive but not yet sure about the nature of the attack. "I'm sorry, is this not appropriate for discussion?"

"Finish y' ques'ion, Remy tell y'." he replied with a frown.

"I simply wished to ask if you had formal training in art history or the fine arts? For recognition purposes, or detecting forgeries." Xavier finished, trying to decipher the closed expression on Remy's face.

The Cajun's chin lifted, "Oui, had art history degree equivalents. T'ieves dat make it t'rough wit' deir names clean get t' do deir exams at LSU an' graduate."

There was a pause before Xavier asked the next question. "And did you ever graduate?"

Remy scowled. "I look like a guy wit' letters after his name t' you?"

It took effort for the Professor to suppress the sigh that tried to bubble forth. "Gambit, I have the pleasure of knowing a lot of well educated individuals who don't *look* like they have letters after their name."

"Non." Remy answered the original question, chastised. "I din' finish de course."

"Would you be willing to teach art history at the school now?" Xavier asked.

Of all the questions he thought the Professor might ask, he was not expecting something like that. "Y' kiddin', neh?"

The Professor arched a brow. "Certainly not. We have no other art experience within the school, and though a little training could allow any one of us to supervise a room full of students drawing or painting, we cannot *teach* them. Certainly, none of us have the skills we would need to advance an older child into a higher education art course should they so wish."

Remy washed one hand over his face in frustration. "Professeur… dieu, Professeur, I'm blind. I can' tell art from anyt'in' else. How'd y' expect me t' teach anyone anyt'in'?"

"We would help you arrange your teaching materials, of course. You're the only one with this skill-set, Remy." Xavier said softly, encouragingly.

But Remy was already shaking his head. "Non, Professeur. Bring someone else in, get a proper art teacher, someone who can do it right. F' de little ones as well."

Undeterred, Xavier countered. "It's something I'd like to avoid as far as possible, Remy - and you agreed with me when I first said it. We're a close knit community here, bringing people in will cause disruption."

"I can' do dis f' you." he settled back down again, eyes closed and face closed. "I jus' can't."

-,. ,-

"Bobby?" Remy asked as a darkened shape passed across the room. He hadn't moved since the Professor had passed through with his idiotic suggestion, and he was feeling lethargic and tired.

The darkened image paused and turned. "Hey, what's up?" Bobby collapsed into a chair nearby. The shape of the man was coloured brightly in heat, only a half shade lighter than a normal body heat, barely noticable with no one else in the room to compare with, but there was an area over Bobby's heart which seemed darker than the rest. A warm hand came up and made a gesture that Remy was sure was rubbing at the edge of that cooler spot.

"Are you alright, Bobby?" he asked, distracted by that dark patch, curious.

"Sure, why?" Bobby replied lightly, shifting in the chair.

Remy looked up, trying to get his eyes to meet Bobby's and not receiving enough feed back to work out if he succeeded. "Just wanted t' make sure. I'm here, y'know. If y'ever wan' t' talk. Rarely anywhere else dese days."

There were flashes of movement across the Iceman's face – too badly defined to identify. Remy decided he really needed to work on identifying facial expressions.

"Thanks." Bobby answered warily. "But I'm fine." And he stood up and left before Remy could press any further.

That, more than anything, made Remy think he was probably right about this whole thing. Bobby, on any other day, would have snapped back a joke like he was made of elastic, wit falling from him and humour if he wasn't feeling ready for wit. This blank denial was not Bobby.

-,., -

"It sounds like a logical conclusion," Kurt was saying, as Jean explained the Creed situation. "– your psychologist was not who he appeared to be, and Sabretooth is working for him."

"It just doesn't make sense," Jean replied. "Canford spent months keeping Creed in that prison, only to break him out?"

Kurt's tail twitched thoughtfully. "Perhaps there was something in the prison that he needed, that Creed was getting for him? He's been scarily subservient from what we've seen – cutting and running when threatened. Completely out of character."

"Regardless, Jean, Betsy and Logan are heading out today to identify what Canford is doing. Bobby, Warren and Remy are all onsite today dealing with the first wave of workmen, Hank and Scott are both at conferences, Ororo has requested a day in the gardens and I have work of my own to complete - what you choose to do is up to you, Kurt, Jean-Paul. Your contract with me doesn't start for another two weeks, but you are free to join any taskforce you think you may be able to help." The Professor answered, glancing at both men.

"Professor..." Warren came to a stop, embarrassed. "Kurt, please don't take this the wrong way, but we're hoping to keep the school as normal as possible for the workmen..."

"Of course. Jean, if you have no complaints I will join you." Kurt bounced eagerly on the edge of the chair, showing no signs of being offended by Warren's half-explanation.

"I will help in the school once I have my things settled." Jean-Paul added.

"Well then, if that is acceptable to everyone; Jean, take your team when you're ready. Everyone else, have a productive day." As close to a dismissal as they were going to get from the Professor, everyone filtered out.

"He couldn't just say 'have a good day', like everyone else." Bobby muttered sideways to the closest person, who happened to be Logan. Logan snorted in reply, and headed for the changing room.

-,., -

The new school's task force was gathered in what was becoming their office – containing the mansion's one computer that was connected to a printer, and now the braille printer that was so new the box and packaging were still shoved behind the door.

"So, how are we going to play this?" Bobby asked, "I'm assuming we're not exposing the school to the baseliners while they're working on the mansion?"

"No, we don't need that kind of attention. Not when we're taking kids on." Warren replied, looking away from the others guiltily. This was supposed to be the only place they could be themselves. "The kids don't need everyone knowing what we're doing here. It's going to be difficult enough to keep it quiet."

"So, Hank and Kurt are going to need to stay out of sight. I'm going to put on my harness and Remy is going to put in his contacts." Warren sighed, flexing his wings slowly as if preparing for the oncoming restriction.

Bobby nodded at that. "What's happening today?"

Warren glanced down at the schedule he was holding. "All the work forces who are going to be working on the building are coming in so we can get timing right, and make sure they know what's expected."

"Prob'ly be best if Bobby and JP do de tour." Remy spoke up. Warren looked over. " I know where de work is, but I couldn' walk it t'rough wit' dem, an' I t'ink you know better, today, Ange."

"I figured." Warren made a sour face. "I'll take you through it at some point. Make sure you can walk it if you needed to."

Jean-Paul caught Remy's double take, but didn't comment. He wasn't the only one bemused by Warren's geniality. Maybe it was oxygen deprivation.

-,., -

Kurt settled himself into the Blackbird with a smile, feeling the familiar adrenaline buzz that came from being with this group of people in this situation. There was something different between the X-men and every other team he'd ever worked with. Something that had always made every altercation, no matter how simple, feel strained like a tensioned rubber band.

Jean and Logan settled at the controls at the front of the craft and Betsy took a seat across from Kurt at the communications console.

Betsy went through the pre-flight checks with the mansion's computer before giving Jean and Logan the all clear.

By the time they were in the air, Kurt was revelling in anticipation. As always, the professor's brief had been more than thorough, and there was nothing of the mission to discuss in transit.

"Jean, I have something to ask of you." Kurt began as Logan stabilised their flight path so that he could hand over to the autopilot.

"What can I do for you, Kurt?" Jean replied, turning in her seat.

Kurt paused for a moment to formulate the appropriate words. "I have to admit to being out of my depth with Herr LeBeau's… condition. I wondered what knowledge you had to share from your youth with Herr Summers."

Smiling, Jean assured him. "You're doing fine, Kurt. Remy's finding this difficult, and he's just worried that you'll judge him on it."

"And yet he seems more comfortable around your behaviour, simply by benefit of your being in the room. You have this way that puts him at ease." Kurt observed.

Leaning forward, Jean bit her lower lip before replying "You have to understand, once this was something that we just did – for Scott – until it became second nature. Some of the stuff I can't even remember the rationale behind it anymore. But it puts people at ease – especially for Remy right now. It's just making sure that everyone knows what you're doing, and where you are in the room. No one likes to be startled."

"And you kept doing it after Scooter got his glasses?" Logan asked, fitting Jean's explanation to behaviour he hadn't even realised he'd been observing.

"It's not about working around blindness, Logan. It works for everyone. It puts people at ease." She explained. "And in a job like ours, putting people at ease can be everything."

-,., -

It wasn't until they sat at the big table in the room that had been cleared for the purpose, that Bobby realised what a rag tag bunch they made.

He'd long been used to the sight of Warren with his wings concealed in his harness, and while he was still sympathetic to the discomfort Warren obviously felt with his wings restrained, it didn't look strange to him any more. But of the four men who had just arrived, only one was managing not to stare at the twisted shape it made of Warren's posture as they sat. And when Remy pulled out a page of notes in braille to match the ones Warren was handing out, the sales manager for the fittings company nearly choked on his coffee. Still, no comment was made and the plans were laid out on the table over a simplified schematic of the mansion. There was only a small area of the building that needed work doing, the area which had never been completed last time they had worked through a catastrophic destruction of the mansion. It needed utilities, plumbing and wiring in, and the specialist panic rooms they had planned needed to be fitted. Other than that, all that really needed working on was the separating walls and some plastering that had fallen.

Remy sat back in his seat as Warren stood to talk over the plans, offering up any suggestions and other comments as they talked through the work. He was picturing the rooms as he remembered them, unfinished and dusty with damaged plaster after the last rebuild. They just hadn't had time to get around to finishing off any work they might have started.

Bobby stepped forwards when the work managers asked to see the building, and the release of tension was palpable. Feeling exhausted, and as relieved to be away from the strangers as they were to be away from him, Remy went to find out if Logan was back yet.

-,., -

"Betsy, we're coming up on the front of the building now." Jean called across the comms. "It looks empty."

Betsy looked over at Kurt and frowned. "What do you mean, empty?" Betsy answered Jean.

"Lights off, no cars in the lot, no guards or staff."

Kurt looked down from where he was staring in through a high level window, hanging from the window sill above. "There's no one in here." he confirmed.

"It's been gutted." Logan growled from the doorway, the lock on the front door cut clean through. "No furniture, no one's been here for a week at least."

"There were other businesses here, a dentist and an architect… the whole building's been cleared out." Betsy added, as she followed Kurt in through the back door.

"Do we have a home address? Or relocation addresses for any of these businesses? We should find out where they've gone."

"Let's clear the building." Jean insisted, watching the sweep of Betsy's light appear at the other end of the corridor. "To me in the centre of the building and we'll clear upwards from there."

"This is getting really weird." Betsy agreed, meeting Jean's eyes down the corridor as Logan appeared behind her.

An hour later, looking at an equally empty apartment block, Jean couldn't help but agree. "Do you think someone's kidnapped him and he's got a mimic out there?"

"Or perhaps this was always the man you were seeking, and he was a very good actor?" Kurt offered.

"Good enough to fool the professor?" Jean asked.

"It's been done before." Betsy had to comment.

-,., -

Bobby knocked and stepped inside the room without waiting for a response, too wired about this decision.

"OK, fine, I need to talk. I just... I can't go to Hank with this because I *know* what he'll say and really... I just don't..." Bobby trailed off. The silhouetted face that had lifted off the pillows was Logan's, and Logan was definitely not wearing a shirt.

"Ya want Remy?" he rumbled.

"No!" Bobby was horrified at the squeak of a sound. "I'll... I'll come back."

"'S'OK. He's not sleeping, he's got headphones in. I'd be glad fer you t' take him away tell truth." Logan leaned over and pulled on the headphone cord, unplugging Remy. "Rems?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Bobby fer ya. Come back when ya feel more like sleepin'." Remy chuckled, rolling off the bed away from the door. Bobby wondered if he should turn his back while Remy dressed, but as the other man strolled around towards him and into the light cast by the hall lamps, he saw the Cajun was wearing leggings and a vest. Bobby frowned slightly, but stepped outside, letting Remy pull the door shut behind him.

Bobby found it hard to decide what he was feeling when Remy took his arm. It was like pulling on an old favourite jumper that had been in a drawer, forgotten for years. There was such a responsibility in being offered control over someone in that way. Trust as well. It seemed so long ago now that Scott had taken his arm for guidance. They'd both been teenagers and trust had been such a fickle thing. Being given a chance to prove himself in that way... he knew Scott hated to remember those times, so in control now, but he secretly harboured a warmth for them.

He looked up into Remy's black-on-black eyes – no contacts tonight – and tried to determine where the pupil was. From the movement of the light on the surface he could see they were searching, not still, but they were impregnable. Shaking himself, he led on towards the TV room downstairs.

-,., -

Bobby took the big armchair as Remy stepped away from him and watched as the other man draped himself over the sofa. Remy was rubbing at his temples with his thumbs.

"Headache?" Bobby asked, grasping desperately at any excuse not to talk about what he had sought out Remy for.

"'M still not used t' dis kinetic shit. Focusin' doesn' work de same way, t'ink i's just screwin' wit' m' head." Remy shook his head and dropped his hands. "Talk t' me, Bobby."

"I think I'm hitting my secondary mutation." Bobby gulped, feeling his temperature drop in response to the stress of saying it out loud.

"De patch of ice on y' chest." Remy confirmed.

Bobby's eyes widened. "How do you know about that?"

"It's like a shadow. 'S colder dan de rest of y'." Remy waved his hand airily in the general direction of the other mutant's torso.

Hands clasped tightly together, Bobby hung his head. "I can't go to Hank with this. It's too much."

Remy's eyes roamed the body of the man across from him, analyzing the varying heat signature spectrum he could see. "You t'ink y' gonna go all de way? Be d'Ice-man all de time?"

There was a small nod from the boy before he glanced up at the Cajun. "Makes sense, doesn't it? It's the obvious form for my secondary mutation to take."

"Not everyone gets dem, Bobby. What if it's somet'in' bad, somet'in' dangerous. Y' should talk t' Hank, or Moira or someone..."

Bobby scowled and interrupted the other mutant. "You hate going to the doc, Remy. You can't lecture me on this."

Both hands raised in surrender, Remy replied "I'm not. 'S jus' friendly advice. 'Least now, someone knows. All I'm sayin' is what y'already know y'self."

-,., -

In the week since he'd introduced the idea, Logan had spent every free morning exploring Remy's tolerances for his touch, and slowly encouraging his own confidence to reach out and engage himself. Though Logan couldn't help but think they were moving too fast, Remy was throwing himself into the impromptu therapy sessions, celebrating this chance to touch without debating every move. Logan had created this time that seemed completely detached from the rest of the world, and if he could only stop his own personal demons invading, he could see this happening; see himself making it through to the end.

Somehow saving this time in the morning took the threat out of this contact. They didn't have to worry about him being too tense to sleep beside the other man afterwards, and facing the day with some kind of achievement made him buzz, driving him through the day.

Logan made a point of making sure it was Remy's decision every morning; he had to ask for this – and every day he stated again that Remy had to tell him when to stop. As they got closer and closer, he worried that Remy's competitive tendencies would lead him into a cycle of driving at his boundaries; worried that he was going to end up pushing too far and all they had achieved in this quiet time would be undone.

They were wearing only jeans and soft cotton trousers, t-shirts discarded, and the intensity in the silence as Remy stepped forwards, coming into Logan's touch, was almost physical. Trusting in the strength of that commitment, Logan brought his hands down to Remy's hips – the move sliding them just that much closer. His hips had always been a big stopping point for Remy. Too many pairs of rough hands – you could control a person's momentum easily if you could control their hips. Could pin them or lock them still.

Logan frowned as Remy leant away from him, and was moving the moment he heard the pained, torn, incoherent noises Remy was making, not releasing his arm – though his first thought was to pull away completely. If Remy was thinking of him as a threat then it was better that he knew where he was in the room.

Remy was repeating his name like a litany, that accent twisting his name until it was almost something he didn't understand – and Logan didn't know if he was calling for him or reminding himself who was there. Logan pulled his hands away slightly, looking for any sign that it was the wrong thing to do – to abandon him in the centre of the room without any anchor.

"Remy?" he asked, resisting the urge to reach out as the other man swayed slightly.

"It's okay. Remy can do it." he whispered in reply, and Logan resisted the urge to curse.

"No, it's not okay, Remy." Logan shot back, and then flinched as Remy cringed away from him. "I mean... if it upsets you, it's not okay." Remy reached out, trying twice but eventually grasping Logan's bare arm and pulling him closer with frantic gestures.

"I'll try harder." he promised, pleaded.

"I don't want you to try harder." Logan snapped back, trying with everything he had to keep his misplaced anger in check. "I want **this**, here, now. I want you to be honest with me. We have all the time in the world. There's no rush. We're still learning."

"Dere are t'ings Remy don' wan' learn any more 'bout hisself." the Cajun whispered.

Logan stepped closer again, any external sign of desire killed by the expression on Remy's face and the sound of his voice, and pulled him closer to kiss him. "You don't have to put on a show for me, and you don't have to push yourself past what's comfortable. You can show me when you're weak."

Slowly Remy unfolded and pressed both hands to Logan's chest. He leant forwards until his head was resting on Logan's shoulder. "T'anks." he whispered.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

-,.,-

"You turned down the teaching job?" Warren asked as Remy wandered into the office, looking exhausted before the day had even begun.

Remy took the chair at the table across from the computer in the cramped space and ran his hands across the laid out papers. There was a new sheaf he hadn't put there with a title that read 'class assignments' . He read the first line – Art: Unassigned – and then pushed the pile to the back of the desk.

"De professeur.. ." Remy started.

"He offered you the art position." Warren interrupted him. "I thought he was joking."

"He jes' lookin' f' a way t' keep Remy busy." he sneered derisively. "T'inks t'ievin' all dis Cajun good for."

"I wouldn't say that." Warren replied, pulling his own copy of the assignments across the desk to read from it. "He put you on war games with Scott, and recreational martial arts with Betsy. Who the hell calls it 'recreational martial arts' anyway?"

"He... what?" Remy asked, pulling the braille-embossed paper back towards him.

"Betsy's glad." Warren carried on as if he hadn't heard him. "It means you can do all the form and she can just shout at the kids when they get it wrong."

Remy read down the whole list carefully, hesitating on the surprises and reading them again to make sure he wasn't missing something. "Dis is... de man's insane."

"Maybe, but his timetable almost works now – and that thing is a maze. God knows how he did it. There's a couple of teachers we will need to pick up from the outside, but that shouldn't be hard. The art is probably going to be the hardest. I guess it'll depend on what group of kids we end up with." There was a rattle of typing from the computer as Warren went back to whatever he'd been doing before Remy came in.

"Y' t'ink de professeur was serious, 'bout de art course?" he asked.

The typing stopped. "He told me his reasoning." Warren answered eventually. "I guess I'd never thought about... well... you know..."

"Y' t'ink any ol' fool be a t'ief and get away wit' it?" Remy shot back, tone sharp.

"Something like that." Warren nodded.

Remy scowled at him, feeling more defensive about his adopted family than he ever had in front of the X-men before. "Dere differen' types 'f guild t'ief, but 'most every t'ief of age in N'Awlins has a qualification in deir field. External, not guild."

"That's the most I've ever heard you say about your guild." Warren commented, turning back to the computer screen.

Remy frowned and bowed his head.

"So... Remy LeBeau: B.A., who would have thought?" Warren continued when it became obvious Remy wasn't going to deny it.

Remy thought about how that title had sounded to him when he'd first thought it possible, and the pit in his stomach when he'd realised it would never be. "Was nineteen when I lef' N'Awlins. Never finished."

Warren turned, frowning at Remy's back. "But you started? Didn't you ever think about finishing it outside the guild?" he asked, something akin to disbelief in his tone.

Remy made a noise and a dismissive gesture, but Warren could see the tension in his shoulders. He brought the subject back to work, giving Remy a reprieve. "Can we walk through the building work now? We have builders in this afternoon, and I need to know you can do it if I need you to."

Remy smiled to himself, and then stood, offering Warren a hand. The winged man tucked the proffered hand into the crook of his elbow and moved to the door.

"How much have you done so far? Where do I start?"

-,.,-

"As far as we can tell," Jean stood up in front of the file image of Mitchell Canford. "Mr. Canford and anyone who might have known him or known how to contact him have disappeared, except for those of us in this room. There's no one at the prison who ever met him, no one at his old office block and no one in his apartment block. There's no record of him on file with the company he claimed to be representing, or record of him getting his qualifications. He's either a very impressive illusionist, or he has friends in high places to pull of this kind of disappearing act."

"Indeed. Quite startling." the Professor agreed.

"What is the course of action?" Kurt asked, leaning forwards over the files on the table.

"We have to find Victor." the Professor answered. "It's likely he is aware of what is going  
on, if we make the assumption that it was the same influence that let him walk out of that prison with no alarms triggered or harm done."

"Have you studied the sites of Sabretooth's attacks yet?" Jean-Paul asked. "They could potentially hold information. "

"That's the next thing to do." Scott spoke up. "We were acting on limited intel. when we first looked them over. Maybe with a fresh look and a fresh pair of eyes we can work this out."

"It's been weeks now, even with the most recent scene. Are you really expecting to find anything, Scott?" Bobby asked.

"We will not know if we do not look." Ororo pointed out.

"All right then." Scott continued, satisfied that the other X-men were in agreement. "These  
were the locations of the attacks;" Scott spread out their marked up map. "That's seven sites to look at. Let's spread it over the week, get two teams to every site. Talk to the police and any other official body that might have had any interest in the case. Gather as much information as you can."

"I have offered my assistance to Warren and Remy this afternoon." Jean-Paul pointed out. "They have a lot to organise and, with workmen in the mansion, perhaps too much to be able to pay due attention."

"Of course." The Professor acknowledged. "I understand that this preparation work is splitting all of your time, but it is better that we settle into this routine now, rather than be unable to work with it later on."

Logan opened his mouth to comment, but Scott jumped in, delaying any hostilities. "Let's organise the teams for the next couple of days now, and then you're all free to settle things before we move out."

The Professor left the meeting before Scott had finished organising the workload, and the leader of the X-men couldn't help but think that behaviour like that wasn't helping matters at all.

-,.,-

Warren walked Remy through the unfinished parts of the building, letting him pace out distances and mark doors, talking him through the work that was planned until it became obvious that his attentions had slipped. Warren stopped at the end of the corridor, not needing to try hard to feign tiredness, and turned to Remy.

"You know..." Warren started, swallowing back his gasping breath. "Ororo was thinking about taking on the practical side of things – the art classes."

"She'd be good wit' dat." Remy replied absently.

"She seemed pretty set on it." Warren pushed a little harder, rolling his eyes as he watched the cogs turn in Remy's mind. There was a long pause.

"What time d' workmen gettin' in?" Remy asked.

"Not until noon." Warren tried to restrain his grin.

Remy turned to lean against the wall behind them, facing back the way they'd come. There was a moment longer, and Warren watched the decision settle across Remy's features. "'s time?"

"Just gone ten." Warren answered, not needing to check his watch.

Remy stepped back towards the main part of the house, already reaching for the first of his markers. "Watch me back t' de hall?" he asked as Warren stepped up alongside him. "I wan' talk t' de professeur."

-,.,-

After three weeks of strangers in the mansion; moving things, screwing up his carefully memorised floorplan and being where they weren't supposed to be, and with most of the mansion's inhabitants on assignment elsewhere - researching the ghost Canford had become, investigating the attack sites or keeping up the X-men presence against any other villain-of-the- week hopeful that sprang up - it was fair to say that Remy had jumped at the chance to  
take a trip into the city to see Matt.

He took a taxi into the city alone for the first time, convincing himself that the buzz of adrenaline he was feeling was excitement, getting out of the house for something other than school; convincing himself it wasn't the thought of getting out of a taxi onto a crowded New York sidewalk and finding Matt's apartment building with nothing but the tip of his cane. It wasn't as if his kinetic sense would help - everyone would be moving around him and the door he was looking for would be as still as the buildings around it.

He was just about ready to ask the driver to turn around - his heart hammering in his chest, his palms sweaty, and if this was a poker game he'd already have lost ten times over - but the taxi drew to a stop. He could feel the packed swarm of people on the pavement just outside the door, moving faster than he could follow any one individual. He jumped as a door slammed and he realised the driver had gotten out and was coming around to open his door. It would save him slamming the door into anyone on the pavement as he opened it, so he waited as the door was opened and slid out into the space, clutching the handle of his cane as he found the ground and stood up, unbalanced by the movement around him. He handed over his fare and waited for change before leaning over the open door.

"Can y' point me t'wards de door?" he shouted over the sound of the weekend crowd.

"Remy." A hand landed on his arm, gentle, and all the tension drained out of him.

"Matt." he greeted, smiling.

"Come with me." the other man said, half-dragging him through the crowd.

-,., -

Logan snubbed out his cigar against the Blackbird's hull as the car rumbled into the sparse concrete parking lot, nodding his greeting as he hit the exterior button and dropped the ramp for Jean to drive straight into the hold. Jean-Paul stood up from the console as Jean and Hank got out of the parked car, Logan following them up the ramp into the hold as they secured the vehicle, closing the doors behind it.

"Checks are all complete." Jean-Paul confirmed. "Are we good to go?"

Logan's attention was drawn to the evidence bag in Hank's hands. "Find something?"

"Perhaps." Hank replied absently, wandering back towards the tiny analytical bench as Jean took over from Jean-Paul at the flight console.

"Warren called in while you were outside, Logan." Jean-Paul said as he headed back to his seat. "Said he couldn't find Gambit in the house, thought you might know where he was."

Logan wandered towards comms and took a seat.

"Did he…" Jean started.

"Hey Matt." Logan interrupted, a landline number flashing up on the console. "Remy with you?" There was a hesitation as Logan listened to the answer on the earpiece. "He need a lift home?" Logan glanced up at Jean as she powered up the engines, grinning slowly. "Hey Rems." he greeted affectionately. "We're leaving the site now, probably an hours turnaround. I can be with you in an hour twenty." Logan didn't make eye contact with anyone as he listened to the reply. "Sure." he grinned and disconnected the call. Turning in his seat, he caught Jean-Paul's incredulous stare.

"Problem?" he growled, forcing the grin off his face.

Jean-Paul brought out a rare smile - broad and enthusiastic. "How did that happen?" he asked. "I mean… I know LeBeau would sleep with anything that moved. But to turn you…"

"I'm not *turned*, asshole. It's just him." Logan willed himself not to feel like he was blushing.

"Wow." Jean-Paul looked faintly awed.

"Yeah." Was Logan's only reply.

"You can see it, you know." Jean-Paul mused, finger to his lips and thumb framing his jawline, as if reassessing Logan. "You look comfortable, happy."

"Stop talking." he growled in reply.

"We've seen it too, Logan." Jean commented from the front console. "In you and Remy, both. You just look so *good* together. And I know Remy has this ability to look comfortable in any situation, but it's not often *real*."

Logan growled low in his chest. He was not going to discuss his supposed love life with Jean and Jean-Paul of all people. And he wasn't going to admit, even to himself, that it might be tempting to ask someone else if he was doing the right thing in pushing against Remy's comfort levels.

Sure, in public they were as comfortable as any other couple - touch-innocent and physically affectionate. So much that it bordered on Logan's comfort levels a lot of the time. The flirting was second nature to Remy, and the public setting meant that it would never go any further. As soon as they were alone, it was a completely different matter. But he wasn't in any way, tempted to tell that to the people in the jet right now.

"We don't mean to make you uncomfortable, Logan." Jean filled the long silence. "But we wanted you to know that we're glad you're both happy." And with that truly sickening vote of confidence, Jean fell quiet and left him to his peace.

-,., -

Logan stepped into Matt Murdock's apartment, finding the door unlocked and wandered through the hall to the lounge where Remy and Matt were stood chatting. Remy had his coat on already, a pack of cards riffling through his hands as he turned to face Logan.

"Hey." he greeted, the cards disappearing in a sleight of hand that Logan missed.

Matt stepped forwards, hand on Remy's shoulder. "Remy, can I talk to Logan for a minute?" he asked as he ushered the other man towards the hall.

"Cloak an' dagger much, Matt?" Remy grinned, stepping away from Matt's hand and into the hall. "I'll jus' be out here." he called back, closing the door behind him.

Matt turned to Logan, face severe. "Are you two... together? Because I always thought Remy had some kind of history."

"Yeah?" Logan asked, feigning disinterest.

"I could tell he was... attracted, the first time we met, years ago now. But I could always feel this..." Matt's words faltered. "You know, I think Remy has a habit of 'emoting' when he's around people he trusts. Like it's his way of making up for the emotionally stunted man everyone else meets. They see a slut and you feel that he's lonely and follow him home. Does that make sense?" he didn't wait for Logan's acknowledgement before continuing. "Anyway, whenever I got too close... he was scared, I could *tell* he was scared. And that's not right. Not for a man like him. By the time I'd thought about calling him on it, the job was finished and he'd left. Logan... I just don't want to find out that the person who made him scared was you."

"Matt." Logan rolled his shoulders, aware of the weight of a story that wasn't his to tell. "Remy's... got history. We're working through it." he finished flatly.

"He won't tell you if you're going too far, you understand that, don't you?" Matt leant back against the wall, expression dubious.

Logan's lips fought a smile. "Yeah." he conceded. "I know that."

"He's doing well, considering the circumstances. But it's like he's happy to accept help up to a point, and then he hits this self-imposed limit and he can't take anything beyond that." Matt shrugged expressively. "He's damn stubborn." he said as he straightened.

"No argument there." Logan nodded. "You gonna let me take him home now?"

Matt laughed sharply, slapping him on the shoulder in a friendly gesture. "He's all yours, Logan."

Logan considered himself fortunate that he was in the presence of two men who couldn't *see* the ridiculously sappy grin he was sure was on his face. He was going to have to work on that.

-,., -

Remy looked up from the six-key Braille computer as Bobby slumped into the seat opposite him. In revenge for his taking a day off to see Matt, Warren had left him a pile of paperwork to get through, and only now was he starting to see the light… so to speak.

"Bobby." he greeted.

"Remy." Bobby replied, tone already amused.

"Early back?" he asked.

"Yeah, nothing much to see." Bobby replied blandly. "Ororo and Logan are starting dinner. I dread to think what that's going to result in." There was a beat of silence where Remy half thought Bobby would go and leave him to work, but when he stood it was to move closer. "It's getting bigger." he half-whispered.

Remy wished he believed he was referring to anything other than the ice patch spreading across his chest. He pushed the book-sized computer away from him and scrubbed a hand across his face. "Shit, Bobby." he said with feeling. "Dis ain' no joke. Y' gotta go see Hank."

"And what if he says it's a secondary mutation? That it's going to make a human popsicle of me, a tiny bit at a time."

"Y' deal, an' y' be t'ankful y' alive." Remy retorted. "Dat's de bes' t'ing y' gon' find out, Bobby. Dere's worse t'ings dan de ice spreadin'."

"Easy for you to say. There's already someone in your bed." Bobby made a face. That hadn't sounded quite so petulant in his head.

"Bobby, dis could be killin' you." Remy said, exasperated, but trying to keep his voice down. He was aware of every other person in the mansion. "Worry 'bout y' sex life af'er Hank's checked you over. Jus'… make sure y' alright firs'."

Bobby went quiet. "I can't decide if not-alright would be better than if this was supposed to be happening, if this was in my genes. What does that say about me?"

"Bobby…" Remy began.

"Not yet, alright? Just… not yet." Bobby interrupted, begging.

Bobby fought back the panic that was gathering at the back of his throat, trying to choke him. Remy wasn't going to make him go, he knew that. He watched Remy scrub viciously at his eyes and thought about what a hypocrite Gambit was being.

"I could turn this around on you, you know. Say 'I'll go when you do'."

That made Remy blink. "Bobby... what?"

"I mean, we should go to Hank, at the same time." Bobby replied blandly.

It was Remy's turn to fight the sudden surge of panic that suggestion wrought. He swallowed before asking, "Why do I need t' go see Henri?"

Bobby frowned. "Your headaches. I mean... I know you don't want to talk about it, but..."

"Dey jus' headaches, Bobby. Dey ain' 'sactly..." Remy gestured at Bobby's chest, searching for words to describe what was happening to the other mutant.

"You're worried, though." Bobby interrupted.

"Non, Bobby. Remy ain' worried t'all. 'S called proje'tin'." he grumbled in reply.

"Liar. I've been honest with you, LeBeau. Why are you still lying?" Bobby asked sharply.

There was a long pause. Long enough for Remy to realise he was trapped. "What if he say de change in m' powers causin' dis? What if he say Remy has t' stop using dem de way he is."

"Could you? I mean… aren't they hardwired now?" Bobby asked curiously.

"I can' shut it down all t'get'er, mais..." Remy physically flinched. "I could stop usin' it."

"And then?" Bobby asked softly.

Lips thinned, Remy replied. "An' den I'd be blind, Bobby. I bin usin' dis t' get around, to work 'round de mansion, t' live. I can' jus' give it up."

Bobby's brows furrowed. "You'd get by though. I mean... You're getting around, you've got your cane and the braille and the programs on the computer. People do without mutant powers. You'd do without."

"I'm... it would be too difficult. Wit' it right dere... it ain' like I could..." the Cajun stammered, looking for the words to explain.

"Yeah, I guess so." And Bobby did understand what the Cajun was trying to say. But, he pressed forward. "But aren't you worried about these headaches? I mean... Hank still can't really explain your eyes." Bobby hesitated for a beat, brain suddenly racing off at a tangent. "God, what if it's a brain tumour or something – those can affect your sight can't they? And the headaches... "

Frustrated, Remy decided to end the conversation. "Are stress, Bobby. Leave it alone."

"You should still see Hank." Came the petulant reply from the ice mutant.

But Remy had the last word. "An' so should you."

-,., -

"But it's my bike, Logan." Remy whined piteously, shifting to the edge of the sofa to grab Logan's arm as he shifted away. He'd tried being angry, it hadn't gotten him far, and now Logan was trying to ignore him.

"You sound like a girl." Logan answered, not looking up from whatever he was doing. It sounded like pages of a newspaper turning, but Remy couldn't think of any time he'd seen Logan with a newspaper in his hands. "If you leave the engine cold too long it's going to get damaged. It needs to be ridden."

"So ride her." he retorted. "Take her out, stretch her. See what a real bike can do."

"The Harley's a helluva lot more 'real' than that Japanese carbon-fibre piece of nothing you call a bike." Logan snorted his distaste, throwing whatever he'd been reading down on the table. "'Sides. I think I'd go straight through the suspension."

"God, Logan. It's jus'… Warren? Really?" Remy flopped back into the chair.

"He's as stir crazy as you are, Rems. And you're getting out of here twice a week to go to school."

Remy had to concede that one. "He's only jus' got his licence back. 'F somet'in' happens, he'll wreck her." he objected spitefully.

"That's horrible, Remy." Ororo commented, coming in from the hall. "You know Warren is not going to harm your motorcycle. Don't be childish."

"But it's *Warren*." he said, as if they'd missed that the first time.

"I thought you two were finally beginning to get along." Ororo sighed, taking a seat beside Logan and picking up the paper from where he'd thrown it.

"He's not keeping the damn thing, he's just going to run it out to the city a couple of times. Keep the engine..." Logan stopped short as a call to the war room went off. "Sweet." he finished, shrugging his shoulders as he and Ororo stood. "I'll talk to you later, alright?"

Work trumping arguments about steel-and-carbon- fibre babies, Logan left Remy by himself to steam.

- ,.,-

Scott was stood at the head of the conference table, seven objects - each one rectangular and dark - were set out in the centre of the table, each one labelled and wired to the console. Hank was working around everyone as they started to take seats. Jean-Paul and Kurt, who had been out with Scott's team, were already at their seats. As the Professor, last to arrive, took his place at the other end of the table, Scott started.

"One of these objects was retrieved by the police from the site which was the victim of arson. At first they thought it belonged to one of the families, but no one claimed it. It was notable because it escaped the fire and the ice-dousing without any damage. When we looked, we found one at every other site. We didn't look twice at them before," he gestured expressively at the boxes. "They look like rat traps."

"You brought them all back here?" Xavier asked, looking over the nearest block curiously.

"We thought it was best." Scott replied. "Hank has tools here that he can't use on location. He had a look at all the boxes in situ and there didn't seem to be anything special about the way they were placed."

"We wondered if they were power packs for the equipment he was using to travel." Kurt suggested. "They looked discarded."

The Professor nodded and looked across the table at Hank, who had finally taken a seat. "Hank – any evidence for this?"

Hank pushed his glasses up his nose and frowned expressively. "The boxes are giving off a signal in the electromagnetic region, but no information I can pin down with the analysis I've done so far. It seems reasonable to infer that they might have been power sources."

"Do you have anything on the locations from the excursion Logan took with Victor?" The Professor asked.

"In this instance, it was a case of needle in a haystack. With the details provided by Logan and the small amount of physical evidence we have - video and suchlike - there are several different possible answered based on the vectors involved. Most of the variables are calculable, but in the case of..."

Scott was the one who interrupted. "Hank, please."

"Ahem." Hank expressed his distaste at being interrupted. "Computationally, I can give you six potential sites, all with a minimum of a ten mile arc. Two cover parts of large urbanised areas, it's a lot to search through."

"Perhaps something to come back to if it becomes necessary." The Professor nodded. "At this point, do we have any evidence that Mitchell Canford was doing anything other than littering the area and keeping Victor under a modicum of control?" He looked around every face at the table. "Well then, I think if we can leave this with Hank, this project can be back shelved until we have any more information. Agreed?"

There was a slow wave of nods and the meeting started to disband. Warren was stood outside the meeting room as Logan left, and pulled him to one side.

"I thought you said you were going to talk to Gambit? I was going to borrow the bike tonight, Logan." he said, his shoulders moving in a way that they had all come to associate with his feathers fluffing, even when his wings were harnessed like they were now. Logan scowled at him.

"I'm dealing with Remy. Just take the bike out, Warren. He's not going to stop you. He'll be pissed off, but what's new?"

Warren's scowl mirrored Logan's. "I would have done, but it's not in the garage. So who's taken it out?" There was a moment when Warren met Logan's gaze and froze. "He wouldn't. He *wouldn't*."

-,.,-

It was like flying, this feeling. The world was nothing around him as it passed him by. And it felt right - so right - to be sat here with this familiar hum, the feeling of power and the wind rushing through his hair. He hadn't felt this edge, loss of control a hairs breadth away, in months. It was exhilarating. The cars were bright things, full of energy and heat, moving apace as they whizzed passed him on the other side of the road. He used every one to define the lanes of the road, stopping him from drifting out into the oncoming traffic. Cars and trucks came into his path every so often and he swung wide around them, holding his breath as he passed each one safely. He pulled into a tight corner breathlessly, the oncoming traffic suddenly *right there* in front of him, knowing that even the slightest knock would have him flying out of control with unthinkable consequences.

With a deep breath and a manic grin he stepped up the speed.

Like flying.

-,.,-

Logan swore as he stepped into the danger room. The holographics were inactive, which he took as a small blessing. The lurid green bike was on its side against one wall, pieces of green plastic scattered across the breadth of the danger room from the cracked casing, front wheel spinning in space. Remy was laying in the corner of the room, splayed out across the floor in a puddle of blood. A sluggish trail was still leaking from his nose as he lay there and only the position of his head had stopped him choking on it. Logan slammed his hand on the emergency button and sat down at Remy's head to brace his neck until Hank arrived.

It was too quiet, as he waited. Logan knew this was the calm before the storm – the quiet stillness that filled the space after aborted movement and before help arrives. They'd had too many injuries inside the danger room and out not to recognise the stilted calm that was empty of true emotion and filled with muted worry.

Remy's eyelids fluttered and Logan put his weight across Remy's shoulders to stop him from moving as he returned to consciousness.

"Rems, hold still, ya hear me?" Remy made some indecipherable noise and tensed under his grip. "Hey, it's OK, just me. But ya need to hold still. Can ya hear me?"

"Yeah, yeah. Keep it down." came the slurred reply.

"Ya gonna hold still?" Logan asked, exasperated.

"Why?" Remy groaned.

"'Cause ya hit yer head hard enough ta knock yerself out, and I want the doc ta check ya out before ya start runnin' around."

"'m fine. 's jus' m' head."

Logan caught Remy's hand as he went to rub his head. "Still means still, Gambit." he growled.

"'K, 'k. Sure." Remy winced.

There was a moment of quiet as Logan debated whether he should be letting Remy pass out again. "Hank's gonna be pissed at ya." he said, to say something.

"Yeah." Remy sighed. "'S de bike alright?" he asked after a beat. Logan glanced over at the wide trail of plastic.

"Ask me later."


	15. Chapter 15 mild

Chapter 15

- ,.,-

Hank glared at the prostrate mutant in the medi-lab bed and his grizzly attendant, aware that his normally artfully-perfected glare was at least half wasted on the blind mutant in his care, and making sure it was doubly effective to make up for the fact.

"There's nothing broken, you'll be glad to know." he said, "Your natural tenacity has saved you this time. With our instruments' inability to penetrate the field around your head, on the other hand, I can say nothing on the subject of concussion or swelling of the brain. You will be on head-injury watch for the next twenty-four hours - in this bed here, do you understand? No escaping," Hank shot a meaningful glance at Logan. "Assisted or otherwise. If something manifests in the next day I need you close enough to do something about it."

"I got it, Henri." Remy mumbled, nodding slowly. "Stayin' right here. No problem."

"I can give you something for the pain, but when you are woken up I need you to answer the questions you are asked as clearly and as completely as…" Hank stopped as Remy waved a hand dismissively, nearly smacking Logan in the face.

"'S bien, doc. Done dis b'fore, neh?" the Cajun interrupted with a slow drawl.

Hank made a frustrated noise. "Yes, you have." he agreed, "Generally, as with today, a result of your own stupidity."

Remy grinned slowly. "Can' argue dat one." he chuckled.

"Can I speak to you, Blue?" Logan said gruffly, interrupting what was looking to become a tirade on Hank's part. It wasn't that he didn't want to know what the hell Remy had been thinking, because he did, but he wasn't sure Hank would ask the right questions.

Hank simply nodded at Logan, and drew a small amount of a colourless liquid out of a glass vial before adding it to Remy's drip and increasing the drop rate.

"You should be able to sleep on that, if the pain worsens call me. If we can't rouse you at the hour mark, or if you can't answer all of your questions clearly…"

"Henri." he interrupted, more sharply this time. "Remy's done dis b'fore."

Looking affronted, Hank shook his head disbelievingly and wandered out of the lab.

"Logan?" Remy asked as Logan turned to follow.

"Sleep, I'll talk to you in an hour." Logan replied.

Remy chuckled slowly, "Was a helluvaa rush." he said, before the drugs dragged him under.

- ,.,-

"Why don't the scanners work?" Logan asked, following Hank into his office.

"Logan, I have explained this on several occasions to the X-men while Gambit was still an active member." Hank replied, obviously frustrated. "You've been part of concussion-watch for Gambit more than once. And for Scott, I might add."

Logan frowned, thinking back to bored hours by a bedside waiting for the hour to tick past so that someone else would take over. It was strange to think that at the time, Gambit had just been another X-man injured in the field. "I just figured Gambit got hit 'round the head a lot. He's not exactly danger-adverse."

"Why are you interested now?" Hank asked, curiously.

Logan thought about it. Trying to work out why the situation was so different. "I care now, I didn't before." he offered.

Hank frowned, lowering his voice. "Logan, I'm sure you can understand why we're concerned about this sudden change of heart." It was as much a question as a statement, but Logan didn't know what he was supposed to say to that.

"What are you saying?" he asked with a growl, heading towards angry that this issue was being brought up again and again. Why couldn't he just have a change of heart?

Hank just looked at Logan for a minute before pushing his glasses back up his nose. "The energy that makes the red of Remy's eyes and the optic blasts that Scott has, leads to a localised excitation of the nuclei. Their physiology – Remy's and Scott's – means that this doesn't affect them in any adverse way. The machine we use to monitor bleeding and swelling of the brain - the MRI - relies on observing the excitation-relaxation patterns of the tissues of the brain. The natural excitation interferes with this and makes it difficult to determine the nature of any brain injury. After any serious head injury, both Scott and Remy are required to spend time in the lab to identify any problem that we might not be able to directly observe." Hank came out of his lecture absolutely sure that Logan hadn't taken in a word, again.

Hearing Hank roll to a stop, even if he hadn't been listening, Logan replied to the earlier question, trying to hold down his own frustration on Remy's behalf. "Gambit doesn't control other people's emotions, he controls what they read of his. Maybe he can change other people's emotions like that, I don't know, but I've never seen him do it."

"You've been visibly happier, less aggressive, less confrontational." Hank replied, pitching his voice soothing. "It's unfamiliar to us. Jean has assured us that Gambit is not putting out anything that he was not before. But there was… some concern."

"Tell Warren to take his concern and stick it." Logan retorted shortly. "Can I take my shift with Gambit, or will there be 'Concern'?"

Hank eyed Logan analytically before replying. "Go and calm down, come back in two hours. Send down the first person you see, I will schedule the others."

Logan scowled and headed for the door. "I'm gonna go make sure he didn't damage his damn bike." he shot over his shoulder.

"Logan, if you don't mind…" Hank called after him, catching up in a few loping strides.

"What, Blue?" Logan snapped back.

Hank hesitated before continuing. "What Remy did today was dangerous to a new extreme. There was no good way for that simulation to end... The Professor will want to talk to him, to carry out a psychological review, but previous discussions between them have always been fruitless. If you could…"

"You want me to ask him if he was *trying* to get himself hurt?" Logan interrupted, the idea ridiculous to him. The boy had just been trying to blow off some steam, he got that. Why couldn't anyone else?

"Or killed, Logan." Hank corrected, watching Logan blanch. "It's not an unreasonable outcome from today's misadventure, Logan." Hank continued. "If there had been a serious injury and Warren had not been looking for the motorcycle…"

"You want me to ask him if he's suicidal?" Logan interrupted again, this time his voice low, glancing over his shoulder as if Remy would hear the words in his sleep.

"Gambit has always been reckless with his life, Logan. We just need to be aware exactly how reckless he is planning on being so that we can be appropriately observant." Hank replied apologetically.

Logan'd never heard a more convoluted explanation for 'suicide watch' before. The thought settled something cold and hard in his gut.

-,., -

Warren and Bobby had already moved the bike when Logan got back to the danger room, and he sent Warren down to the lab. The least he could do for the kid right now was make sure that Wings took his shift while Remy was unconscious and didn't have to listen to the winged mutant's griping.

With the concept of suicide watch rattling around his head, Logan had spent two hours getting his ass kicked against the worst the danger room could throw at him. Rinsing off the blood and sweat in the showers, Logan tried to phrase the question in his head.

"Are you *trying* to kill yourself?" became "Hank wants to know if you're trying to kill yourself." very quickly, because starting an argument when a man had another twenty two hours laid up in Hank's lab just wasn't fair. "What were you thinking?" just sounded petulant, and "How the hell did you get the bike down to the danger room?" really didn't cover the question in hand. At all.

In the end when he turned up to find Remy sitting up in the bed, Remy started first with: "I need somet'in' more'n a desk-job, Logan. 'M goin' crazy here."

"Stir crazy ain't a reason to try and wreck yer bike." Logan replied blandly, watching as Remy's hands fisted and relaxed on the sheets convulsively.

"I can' live so many years like I did an' den jus' stop." Remy shot back. "Feels like I got caged. Everyt'in' controlled, paced out, measured. I can' go f' a drive, or get in a fight or steal somet'in' f' de hell. I can' even cook or leave shit on de floor. I know Henri t'inks 'm tryin' t' hurt m'self, but I don' know how t' deal... I need d' adrenaline."

Logan watched all of the frustrated energy drain out of the man. "Are ya trying ta hurt yerself?" he asked quietly.

"No more dan I was b'fore," Remy replied sardonically, "Jes not 's good as I was at avoidin' de walls, neh?"

"Would it be easier if you were on your own?" Logan asked. "You're safe here, all of the time. Most excitement you get is going into the city to see Matt."

Remy made a face. "At de moment, I can' find de point where excitement don' mean fear or gettin' m'self hurt. I need t' be out of control, but…" There was a heavy sigh from the Cajun. "When I was younger, I went lookin' f' t'ings dat scared me 'cause it was right dere, y'know? Jus' fer a second an' den it's gone an' y' back in control. Den m' powers started actin' wild, everyt'in' 'came about keepin' ahead 'f Sinister, 'f Sabretooth. Got so I wanted it back, de out-of-control feelin'."

"It's not the out-of-control ya need, it's the takin' control afterwards." Logan finished for him. "It's being able to take control of a situation."

"'M not goin' anywhere, Logan. An' 'm not tryin' t' hurt m'self." Remy leant back against the rails on the bed. "Y' should know dat."

-,., -

It was the twelfth hour out of twenty-four, and Remy had shown no signs of anything untoward. He was also off the pain medication, no longer tired, and sore all over. He shifted to move pressure off the bruise on his hip where Hank thought the bike might have caught him when he came off it, and ended up sitting on the bruise on the other side of his back which was definitely where he'd hit the danger room wall, because it matched the lump on the back of his head.

He had answered Bobby's pre-scripted questions as shortly as he could get away with, and now he was just hoping that Bobby would go away for the next hour, or at the very least sit still and be quiet.

"Since you're down here," Bobby started hesitantly. "You could talk to Hank, y'know… about your headaches?"

Remy grimaced. "I ain' de on'y one down here right now, Bobby. Dis de perfect opp'tunity f' you, hein?"

Bobby turned to go, jerking back as Remy grabbed his wrist roughly. "I can't." he hissed, pulling his hand free.

He nearly backed straight into Hank as the blue mutant stepped out of his office. "What is it that you can't do, Robert? You are a most competent individual."

Bobby looked up at Hank in horror, trying to think of something, *anything* he could say to cover himself.

"Henri." Remy interrupted his panic, voice calm. "Bin havin' dese headaches recen'ly - las' couple months. Y' t'ink it has anyt'in' t' do wit' what Rogue did t' m' head?"

"Hmm…" Hank mused, looking between Remy and Bobby curiously. "It's possible they are simply being brought on by the stresses of your current workload, but I will happily run a few tests to ensure there's nothing else we should be concerned with."

"Remy'd 'preciate it." he replied blandly, and Bobby was amazed that he could sound so calm.

"Describe the pain to me?" Hank asked, frowning in a way that brought his bushy eyebrows together. Bobby had always been amused by the expression, but right now there were other things hanging over his head. Bobby looked to Remy so that he wasn't staring at his friend. He realised Remy hasn't answered when he noticed the look on Remy's face. "I can do nothing about symptoms you haven't told me." Hank pushed.

Remy paled and swallowed hard. "'S like..." he hesitated. Remy tilted his head in an unfamiliar way and, like a cold hand down his back, Bobby knew the Cajun was focusing on the cold patch on his chest, using it to reinforce his resolve. "It's like pressure, behin' m' eyes." he finished.

"Tell me, when you last had difficulties with your powers, did you have any headaches then?" Hank asked quietly. Bobby saw Remy jerk sharply where he sat, and shuddered at the dry fake smile that Remy pasted on.

"Y' have t' understand, Henri." Remy's voice was low, quiet. "Was 'round dat time I wen' t' Sinister an' got me lobotomised. Might've been lot of headaches 'round den I weren' too worried 'bout.

Bobby swallowed past the thick feeling in this throat. He'd made Remy talk about this, made him admit to this. God, Sinister? That hadn't even factored onto his potential-reasons-for-headaches list.

"You what?" Hank's face hardened, and he glanced at Bobby, look sharp.

Bobby got it, heading for the door immediately, nodding. "I'll give you some room." he said, guilty that he was running.

Hank's attention came back to Remy sharply. "Start from the beginning, Gambit. Tell me everything and then tell me why you didn't think to tell me this in the first place." Bobby got out of the way.

-,., -

It took two hours and four slightly different lines of internal arguing before Bobby convinced himself to go back down to the lab and talk with Hank. In the end it was the simplest argument that won out. He'd made a deal - hell, it had been him that suggested the damn thing. And Gambit had gone ahead with his part. Dear god, had he gone with it.

He had delayed a little longer by thinking about the situations in which he would go to Sinister and ask him for a lobotomy. Hell, situations where that would even work.

His mind wandered briefly via 'if he could stop me turning to ice…' and then shied away with the realisation that if he couldn't say it to *Hank* he sure as hell wasn't going to be able to come out with it in front of one of the scariest people he'd ever faced.

Keeping in mind that oh-so-casual tone of voice that Remy had used earlier, Bobby shook himself and forced his feet to walk to the open door to the lab. Remy was still on the bed in the corner, back to the door. Not sure if he was awake or not, or even if he would want to see Bobby after what he had just been forced to admit, Bobby turned towards the office where he could see Hank sat in front of the computer screen.

He stood in the doorway, watching Hank scroll through data, flipping between programs and images and pages of numbers. He half wondered if he could just walk away right now - Hank wouldn't even realise he'd been there, he was so engrossed in his work. He was busy; busy trying to work out what was going on with Remy. He didn't need more on his plate right now.

Bobby was all but ready to make his escape when Hank glanced up. Looking over at Remy, Bobby realised - if there was no one else in the lab, that meant it was Hank's shift.

"Ah, Robert!" Hank greeted, not noticing Bobby's sudden pallor. "Sorry for ejecting you so suddenly this afternoon. I had never thought to hear that particular story from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I had worried our rarely effusive Acadian friend might refuse to answer with an audience."

"Is Gambit alright?" Bobby asked, spotting his way out. "I mean, his headaches?" If there was a problem, then there was no way Hank needed to be dealing with his issues at the same time.

"I have done some more extensive scans, and blood tests - he mentioned that you might have had something to do with his forthcoming." Hank looked at Bobby speculatively, before continuing. "That man's fear of my altogether *unthreatening* medical lab is far beyond simple white coat syndrome, that much is clearly obvious. He found the whole ordeal quite difficult."

"And?" Bobby prompted. "I mean… the scans?"

"Ah… oh, as you know, his own power renders our MRI facility useless, but the soft tissue analysis I have carried out show nothing worrying. No tumours, or other damage besides that which Gambit has admitted to - the work done by Mr. Sinister." Hank's face contorted into a vicious scowl.

Bobby swallowed heavily. "He really let Sinister do that to him? I mean… with his head?"

Hank looked for a moment like he was going to reply, bursting with the whole distasteful story, but he glanced past Bobby into the lab and shook his head. "What M'sieur LeBeau has shared with me is not for me to repeat. Much as I might like for him to talk to someone about these ghosts from his past..." He glanced at Bobby speculatively. "Perhaps you should ask him. Once something has been said once, it is often easier to share again. Meanwhile, any headache that he mentions or shows obvious signs of should be reported to me immediately. I will need data from an event, not simply Gambit's toned-down explanation. Please pass the message on to the others, I think it unlikely he will come back to me willingly. This episode of free information may have been brought about by judicious application of painkillers and a moment of weakness."

"Umm… no." Bobby muttered, flinching as soon as it was said. No going back now.

"Sorry?" Hank asked, baffled.

"It wasn't just the painkillers." Bobby rushed out all at once. "I… I made a deal with Remy. But then I honestly didn't expect him to go through with it."

Hank paused before asking, "And what was your part of this deal, Robert?"

"I… well… I think I know what you're going to…" Bobby stopped to take a breath, trying to get the words in the right order. "You're my friend, Hank," he tried again. "And you… you've had to deal with this… and I just didn't think I *could*… and you're busy, with Gambit and…"

Hank caught hold of Bobby's shoulders as he started to head for the door, pushing him down into a seat as his halting explanation stumbled to a stop.

"Robert. Whatever this is, I am sure it is no where near as bad as you think." Hank reassured, keeping his hands on Bobby's shoulders for a minute.

Silently, Bobby reached out and picked up one of Hank's huge hands, using one claw to trace a line down his T-shirt from his collar bone. The audible difference as the claw moved from flesh to ice was enough to cause Bobby to flinch. Hank's eyes widened and he took his hands back to move Bobby's shirt as the ice man did his best to avoid all eye contact. He glanced down at the ice as Hank pushed his shirt up to his shoulders before looking away again.

"It's getting bigger," he muttered as Hank moved his blue hands away from his iced up chest long enough to pull up Bobby's file on the computer and pull a pair of callipers out of a draw. "Every time I ice up, it's like I'm not coming all the way back."

"Robert…" Hank sighed. "We'll work this out, alright?" He looked away briefly. "We'll work it out."

-,., -

"Ororo, can I ask your opinion on this, please?" Betsy was brandishing a manila folder as she came out of the office. The folders were becoming a familiar sight as the X-men started to collect information on young mutants around the states and the world. Already, negotiation had begun on a couple of youths in dangerously volatile situations. There were a couple of students that they were going to have to take on long before the school was ready, simply to ensure that they stayed out of harm's way until term started. The sheer number of mutants in need of help had been something of a shock to them all, and the realisation that the school was barely going to scratch the surface had lead to weeks of trying to expand their intake, only to realise that it just wasn't possible. Now, with their criteria as stringent as they could make it, they were going through lists and lists of potential students, unable to escape the feeling that every one they passed over, they were condemning.

Ororo waited for Betsy to join her before walking with her into the lounge. They both took seats and Betsy handed over the file. "What do you have?" she asked. The mark on the corner of the folder was WW. It had become standard practice to ensure that the vetting process for any individual was carried out by someone other than their sponsor, to avoid favouritism.

"It's one of Warren's. Prescient from what I've read. There's not much information, only a series of sightings where the kid has raised attention to a situation to save a life. The police haven't caught on, and they can't charge the kid with anything so they let him go. There are medical files in there, as well. None of them are named, and the doctor hasn't signed any of them. If they're ligitimate, he's got a place."

Ororo opened the file at a random place and blanched at the details on the medical form looking back at her. There was no name for the patient or the doctor, as Betsy had said, and no signature on the form, patient identifier, or insurance information.

"Warren wouldn't have put them in there if he didn't think they belonged." Ororo offered, looking curiously for any kind of confirmation that the medical files matched up with the child.

"It's his only case, and a court wouldn't take unidentifiable doctors' reports. But… This kid's in a position to be fast tracked if he's getting the abuse that's listed in these reports." Betsy said, biting her lip.

"Then he is in a good position to be helped." Ororo answered. "We are not a court. If we know this is happening, we can stop it."

Betsy sat back in the chair. "Have you noticed, every name Warren has submitted so far has been pushed forwards?" she asked, watching Ororo's face.

"I have." she replied simply.

Betsy fingered the edge of the folder. "I'm not sure… I've got no proof, but I think he has people watching out for kids like this. Using the business' money to keep as many of them safe as he can. It makes me think that there are a lot of kids out there that he's not putting forwards because he can keep them safe already."

"I wouldn't doubt that he is man enough to do it, and generous enough with his funds." Ororo smiled. "We must do what we can for those his money can't reach." She tapped two fingers on the file that sat between them before pushing it back towards Betsy. "Put him into the fast track." Ororo suggested. "Let us trust Warren's judgement on this."


	16. Chapter 16 mild

Chapter 16

-,.,-

Remy stood at the door and looked out into the night. The trees ahead were alive with movement, even as the mansion behind him slowed and stilled for the night. He'd stood here a million times before, looking out into those woods and never seen as much as he was seeing now. In moments like this, he could almost make himself believe he'd gained something.

His eyes still saw some difference between the light and the dark, and he knew when the sun was still sitting on the horizon, slowly fading out of the sky. As it darkened to black he didn't know if the sky was still the red of sunset or already darkening to dusk.

He lit a cigarette with a glowing fingertip, and let it flare briefly before breathing in soothing warm smoke.

He'd been amused when Logan had handed him the pack as he'd walked him out of Hank's clutches at the end of his enforced stay. The rota for household chores had been rewritten around the recent changes in the mansion, but that left Remy without his usual opportunity to pick up supplies. He'd accompanied Jean on one shopping run – though he thought it had been more her attempt to get him out of the mansion than any misconception that he might be able to help. He'd appreciated the thought, but being dragged around the store trying not to knock into shelves, displays and other shoppers as Jean debated which brand of juice was better wasn't exactly his idea of a break. And it wasn't as if she'd even let him pick up cigarettes.

He wasn't addicted – spending two months recovering from pneumonia and breathing oxygen through a mask whilst unconscious was enough to clean the nicotine out of most people's blood streams – it was just the simplicity of an action that was still exactly the same as it had always been, since he'd been far too young to start.

Taking a last deep breath of smoke, Remy tossed the butt away and pulled his cane from his long jacket pocket, stepping out towards the woods.

-,.,-

Logan watched from the house as Remy strode out into the darkness. There was defiance in his step, his straight back and shoulders braced. He looked like he was going into battle with something out there. Curious, Logan made his way out onto the porch where Remy had been stood moments before, the smell of his cigarette still lingering. Out on the green, Remy was stepping more slowly now, his path was less sure without a pavement to follow or walls closing him in and the sweeps of his cane were hindered by the grass. Unwilling to disturb him, but still wanting to know what he was doing, Logan headed to the back of the house, planning to circle around the woods and meet him on the other side.

He scented the air as he moved into the woodland that created the western boundary of the mansion's grounds. Autumn was heavily set in now, trees long past green and into the deeper reds and chestnuts. Some trees were already starting to drop their leaf cover for the winter, and the air smelt of leaf mulch and rot. There was the scent of a doe in the wind, part of the herd that the mansion homed, and Remy – at odds with his surroundings with his scent heavy with cigarette smoke. The doe came alert and leapt away in a scuffle of hooves. The noise was enough to raise Logan's heart beat, the noise of a hunt becoming a chase, but he moved further into the woods, following Remy's scent.

Logan had come most of the way through the trees when he saw Remy, stood with his eyes closed and head down, forehead creased in a frown. His cane was held lightly between his hands, tip propped on the ground between his feet. The Cajun turned a little, coming to face Logan and opening his eyes, straightening.

"Stalker." Remy accused with a grin as Logan stepped into the small clearing. The space wasn't far in from the edge of the treeline, and if he stood in the right place Logan could see the mansion through the trees.

"Just curious." he replied, taking a seat with his back against the nearest tree, looking up at Remy, still standing. "Whatcha doing out here?"

"Practicin'" Remy replied shortly. He folded the cane and shoved it into a deep pocket, pulling his coat closer around himself against the chill autumn air. "Y' know, I come out here so dere ain' anyone t' see me fall."

Logan snorted out a laugh. "Ya want me ta shut my eyes, Gambit?" he asked, watching tensely as Remy's brow furrowed and he walked a half dozen steps further into the forest without the aid of his cane.

He stepped smoothly across the uneven ground, skirting between two trees and hesitating. "Jus' let me fall, neh?" he said. A grin flickered over his features, "An' relax, I know what I'm doin'."

Logan found himself with his heart in his throat as Remy suddenly took off at a run, tracing a rough serpentine around the outside of the clearing, dodging trees and saplings as smoothly as if he could see them. He flowed through the empty spaces, tripping, stumbling, but never falling to the ground. It wasn't flawless, but his movements were precise, accurate. There was a gleeful grin on Remy's face that Logan realised he hadn't seen in months, and it was that which finally uncoiled that knot of tension inside him. The laughter that he heard when Remy – out of sight for a moment – collided with something hard enough to knock the wind out of him, made him want to join in this manic dance.

"What're you practising?" Logan asked, finally too curious to just sit and watch as Remy slowed. There was something more than instinct going on here, but he couldn't see how Remy's kinetic powers could show him such a static environment. Remy ambled back to the centre of the clearing. His movements were unsteady suddenly, as if all the confidence in his surroundings that had guided him a moment ago were gone. Logan stood to catch hold of his arm as he nearly shouldered into a broad tree trunk, and pulled him down beside him. Logan moved wild hair back off Remy's face as he sat.

"Takes too much concentration still. Soon as 's gone," Remy made a fly-away gesture with his hands. "Takes too long t' get it back. 'S harder wit' you here. Y' so warm 'gains' everyt'in' – y' harder t' block out."

"What were you doing?" Logan asked curiously.

"Out here de wind has dust in it, leaves… it's jus' big 'nough t' follow. When it real windy y' can see… like de currents? Dey move de trees, an' move *aroun'* de trees." Remy pushed his hand through his hair, displacing Logan's hand still lingering on the nape of his neck. "'F I concentrate hard 'nough, 's like it makes dis bigger shape. 'S like seein' de trees."

"You're watching the air move?" Logan asked, astounded.

"'S hard, mais… 'f I work wit' it, might be able t' do it inside, wit' de walls an' doors." Remy grinned broadly, but Logan couldn't help but think, even in the fading light, he looked tired.

"Ever think pushing your powers like this is what's causing yer headaches?" he asked blandly.

"I ain' gon' stop." Remy snapped back.

"Do you think it is?" Logan asked again, thinking that his question had probably been answered by the response he'd gotten.

Remy shrugged eloquently, biting his lip. "Get dat buzzy feelin', like holdin' static." he muttered.

"Before the headaches?" Logan asked.

Remy nodded slowly.

"Ya got that now?" he pushed.

Remy turned his face away. "No, won' come yet." he answered.

Logan leaned in against Remy's side, looking out into the trees and trying to work out what Remy was seeing. The concept of movements so tiny as air currents and dust particles was hard to grasp.

He shuddered lightly as Remy pressed his lips to the pulse point on the side of his neck, feeling the adrenaline rush from earlier rising again. His imagination provided him the picture of Remy running through the trees like he had been a moment ago, wild and unrestrained, and of him following, chasing. He was breathless when he turned to accept Remy's kiss, pulling him close against his side. He could feel the grinning curve to Remy's lips over his own. Feel the warmth of his breath, and the heat of his skin as he slid a hand inside his collar.

"You ready to come to bed?" he asked huskily.

-,., -

Logan had always woken early, never inclined to stay in bed longer than necessary. Whether as a result of his healing factor requiring less sleep, or simply his nature, lazing in bed had never appealed.

This morning was no different, but he was surprised to find on waking that Remy was already out of bed and in the shower. The Cajun was made for lazing around, and Logan was starting to make a habit of meditating to the thought of that long body stretched out on the bed in the morning, face relaxed in sleep, effortlessly beautiful.

When he emerged from the shower there was a tension in Remy that Logan couldn't identify. Something in the crease of his forehead that made him think of Remy walking into the woods alone in the dark. Charging at his fears head-first.

"Morning." Logan greeted, trying to keep his worries out of his voice. "Early for you?"

"Done sleepin'." Remy grinned, and that simple expression took all the tension out of his form. Logan wondered how much was an act. "Dis morning," Remy wandered over to the bed and settled his hands on Logan's shoulders as he spoke. "Remy wants t' try somet'in' diff'rent." Logan slid to the edge of the bed, sitting with his knees against Remy's.

"Oh yeah?" he asked.

Remy smiled, threading his hands through coarse hair, teasing the symmetrical spikes. Remy had to lean down a long way to meet Logan's mouth, and together they tipped back to ease the angle. Logan reached out, catching hold of the knot in Remy's towel and pulling him bodily onto the bed. The Cajun landed with a soft whump of expelled air and Logan curled around him to reengage the kiss.

Remy spread his hands across Logan's skin, the touch almost chaste. "Wit' m' powers," he whispered into the sudden quiet. "Remy can give y' his energy, an' den use it f' himsel'."

Where Remy's hands were spread on his chest, Logan could feel warmth seeping into his skin. The feeling was like liquid fire, pulsing through him, exciting him without more than a hand's contact. Remy moved, pressing his whole body against Logan's side and Logan felt a rush of heat, sudden and intense. At first it was too much, bringing a gasp from his lips, but Remy was there, the touch of his skin cooling as Logan burned up inside. They came down from the peak together, skin on skin, sharing heat.

"What a rush." Logan chuckled, shifting lower in the bed and pulling Remy up tighter against his side, suddenly understanding what Hank had said about Remy's powers. Giving a tiny bit of kinetic energy and taking back more than he'd put in. Recharging himself.

"Was it a'right?" Remy asked quietly, sounding so unsure of himself that Logan sat up to see his expression. Remy tilted his head away, hiding himself.

"God, Remy, ya have to ask?" Logan replied, frowning. Something cold was forming in the pit of his stomach to see the confident, cocky Cajun unsure of himself. He shifted to tighten his grip around Remy's shoulders, pulling him close.

"I jus'..." Remy scrubbed at his face with one hand and hissed out a word that sounded rude. "Wit' women 's easier. Y' gotta get it right. Y' get more..." Remy pulled away, stepping off the bed.

"Yer sayin' ya doubt yer own prowess because I'm a guy and I'd get off on any little thing?" Logan interrupted, biting down on faintly hysterical laughter, his head spinning from this turn of events. He pulled Remy back onto the bed.

"Y' get hard f' _Sabretooth_, cher." Remy replied blandly, kneeling on the bed as he resisted Logan's pull.

Logan let go of his hand sharply, stung. "That's fighting. I can't help..." he growled.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know dat." Remy dropped his head, "Dat was uncalled for."

"I'd never sleep with Sabretooth." Logan snarked. Remy physically shuddered and went a little pale. Logan pulled him closer, right in against his side. "I want ya t'be happy about this, Remy. And yer not happy."

Remy sagged, sliding down until he was laying over Logan's upper body. As much of himself in contact with the other man as he could manage. "'M happy, Logan. So happy dat 'm scared 'm gettin' it wrong."

Logan looked at Remy… really looked. He needed to understand. Needed to know where this was coming from, what this confusion that was pulling Remy apart really was. What he was scared of. "I'll tell you, alright? Like you're gonna tell me if you're not comfortable with anything we're doing. I promise you, I'll tell you if it's not right." The realisation came all in a rush, and Logan sat up, gripping Remy's forearms as he pulled the lean form upright along with him. "I'll never, ever hurt you for getting this wrong, Remy. You know that, don't you? I'm never going to hurt you."

Remy pulled away, scrubbing roughly at his eyes with the heel of his hand as he dropped the towel from around his waist immodestly and went looking for clothes.

"You got a headache?" Logan asked gruffly, already itching for movement and very aware that meditation was going to have to come soon or morning training was going to get violent. Remy didn't answer and Logan took that as answer enough. "You should go see Hank." he said as Remy pulled on a pair of jeans and turned towards him with a T-shirt in hand.

"'S fine, cher." he answered, leaning forwards to share a kiss before pulling the T-shirt over his head and heading towards the door.

"Remy." Logan called out before Remy stepped outside. "You gon' be alright the rest of today?" he asked, wary of the breakdown. He wasn't sure *he* could handle talking about this right now when the urge to go and hunt something was rushing through his blood like a living thing, but he had to ask.

Remy turned from the door and headed back. Stood at Logan's knees where he was still sat on the bed, Remy grinned wickedly. "'M better'n alright, cher." he leant over to whisper conspiratorially, and shared a long kiss. With that comment, Logan was sure he saw a flicker of Gambit's old red glint in his black eyes. Remy wandered from the room, leaving Logan bemused.

"Fuckin' bipolar empaths." Logan muttered to himself, as he debated whether missing meditation in favour of a cold shower was worth the temptation to tear someone a new one for the rest of the day.

-,., -

Victor Creed was bored. The blissed out state of agreeability that he got whenever the boss praised him didn't last as long as it used to, and he was desperate for more work so he could prove to him that the mistakes he had made last time wouldn't happen again. He wondered if anyone had taken over the work he'd been doing and was filled with a jealous rage.

This work was his, the praise was his.

He walked into the compound as if he was going into battle – shoulders squared, footsteps heavy.

There was a different secretary at the desk this time and Victor grinned to himself, feeling justified in having hated the previous girl. This was an older woman; smartly dressed, well made up. She looked up at him like he was dirt, and Victor liked that.

"I need to see him." Victor growled, moving so that he towered over her where she sat and getting a rush when she didn't even flinch.

"He's busy." she replied flatly, keeping eye contact.

"I need a new job. I need work. Tell me, give me something." he demanded, trying not to hear the whining tone in his own voice.

"He'll be ready to make his move soon. Then you'll be essential to his plans. Until then, you're only a liability. Stay out of the way."

Hearing that the boss had included him – needed him – in his plan, made Victor fill with a thrilling warmth that was almost as good as the real thing.

Nodding respectfully, he backtracked out of the office and wandered back to the rented apartment in the tiny town, where he resumed pacing in frustration.

-,., -

"The builders are trying to make out that the psi-protected room is unreasonable again." Warren griped as he stepped into what was now officially the administration office of the new Xavier's School for the Gifted. It was barely two hours into his day and he was already tired, his wings cramping uncomfortably in their harness. Jean-Paul was sat at the tiny cramped desk that had been added at the end of the room, and Remy was sat at his own, both with their workspaces heaving with piles of paperwork - Remy's comically so, with the embossed Braille sheets taking up twice the space as simple type.

Warren sat down heavily with a sigh, brushing a hand through his hair and cringing as plaster dust fell into his lap. He accepted the file of contact numbers from Jean-Paul, quickly flicking to the page with the contact details for the parent company, the fourth time this month he had been forced to contact them. Every week seemed to bring new challenges. While the plumbers and electricians had been intimidated enough to do their work and get out, the builders and plasterers had been dragging their heels at every corner.

"Are any of the rooms up?" Jean-Paul asked, looking up from the ledger-sized file they had using to collect all the documentation on the school. "They said the sound proof room would be complete by the end of last week."

"I've not seen anyone in that part of the house all week." Warren replied with a frustrated sigh.

"What about the dark room." the speedster looked up at the draft schedule that was pinned on the wall next to him.

"Not there either..." Warren frowned. "Remy?" he asked, aware that the other man hadn't spoken.

"I'm readin'." came a frustrated reply.

"I'd believe you if your hands were moving." Warren said dryly. "Headache?"

Remy snorted sharply, pulling his hands away from the page. "I 'ave classes."

"And...?" Warren started.

"I thought that was Mondays and Thursdays?" Jean-Paul asked over him.

There was a pinched look to the Cajun's face. "De AFT course starts in a few weeks. 'Ave work t' do b'fore we start. Workin' on texts an' gettin' resources toget'er."

Warren met Jean-Paul's eyes. Remy was slurring slightly, and they could both hear it. "Is this for the art history course?" Jean-Paul continued the conversation fluidly.

"Yeah. An' f' de record, de guys at Leadenhall t'ink Remy gone nuts." he groped.

"Are there many texts in braille?" Warren asked. He scribbled on a piece of paper and held it up to Jean-Paul.

Jean-Paul leaned over to read: 'go get Hank'.

"Art texts?" Remy continued, oblivious. "Su'prisin'ly, non. Merde. I've not *seen* some of dese prints f' nearly a decade. Dis was a bad idea." Remy's head dropped into his hands and Jean-Paul stood up.

"Can we do any typing for you? Transcription?" he asked, already heading out of the door. "I don't type like a geriatric, unlike Warren."

Remy snorted his laughter, sitting up slowly, delicately. "Anyt'in' y' got time t' do, I'd 'preciate." he replied.

"Sure." and Jean-Paul was gone from the room with a call of 'Be right back'.

Remy smiled. "We move too slow f' de speedster."

"Do you have a headache, Remy?" Warren asked persistently.

"Remy's tryin' t' learn how t' teach kids 'bout images he can' *see*. Yes, Remy got a fuckin' headache." he snapped, running a hand through his hair and leaving it sticking every-which-way.

"Pass up classes today." Warren appealed to him. "You know what Hank said. He wants to work out what this is."

Remy straightened his hair and stood up. "It's stress, Ange. Someone signed de blin' man up f' teachin' a fuckin' art course."

"You're going to have to learn not to swear if you're going to teach kids." Warren reminded wryly, looking down the hall for Hank.

Remy picked up the hefty book he had been not-reading and slid it into his bag behind a wedge more papers. "You phone de builders?"

"Don't go in, Remy." Warren sighed, already knowing he'd lost the argument. "You're not up for this."

"Fuck off, Wings." Remy bit back. "De builders?"

"Yes, I'll get them back on the job." Warren agreed.

Remy nodded once, sharply, and headed for the door. "I'll be back later. The AIS want to talk to us again." He was almost out of the door when the phone rang.

"Damnit, if dat's anot'er prank call, I'm gon' get Betsy t' fry de fucker." Remy hissed, the vehemence betraying his mood.

Chuckling at his frustration, Warren stepped over and knocked Remy's hand away as he reached for the phone. "You're not in a mood to be answering phones. Wait there." He picked it up himself and watched as Remy stepped back out of the door. "Wait." he called out, putting the phone to his ear. He just needed to stall Remy long enough for Jean-Paul to get Hank up here.

"Xavier's School for the Gifted." he spoke down the phone line. "Warren Worthington speaking, how can I..."

"Warren?" the voice on the other end of the line interrupted. Stunned, Warren froze, phone clutched to his ear. He looked up into the doorway slowly, seeing Remy still there, waiting curiously. He put his hand over the receiver.

"You can go." he hissed, forgetting about Hank, forgetting about everything. "I need to take this." Remy nodded and headed down the hall without saying a word. "Hello." he said.

"Warren. I need to come home." the voice continued.

-,., -

It had been a long time since Victor had last caught this escalating scent, but he still knew the smell of a tesseract portal breaking across space and into his vicinity. He froze still, tensing in the corner of the room as the tear opened, and waited for someone to step through it.

Sinister didn't let him make the move his claws were already itching for. He stepped forwards and slammed him solidly into the ground before he could even move.

"That was uncalled for." the metallic man commented blandly, standing over Sabretooth's pinned form.

"Sinister." Victor hissed. "I'm working for Canford now. I haven't got time for…"

In a fluid movement, Sinister lifted Victor from the ground and slammed his head into the ground again, this time cracking his skull solidly across the temple. "You stink of servitude." he mused at the unconscious form of the feral mutant on the ground. "This isn't like you at all. And what's this..." Sinister knelt to pick up Sabretooth's wrist and the piece of technology there. "What a pretty bangle. Let me break it for you."

When Sabretooth returned to consciousness, his skull knitting quickly across the fracture, Sinister was sat in a chair on the other side of the room. The metal-clad man watched Sabretooth's face as he leapt up, snarling.

"You're free of his influence." Sinister said in a low voice, cutting through the building growl.

There was a moment when the look of realisation on Sabretooth's face - distended by his jutting fangs - looked reminiscent of an old cartoon. The cat realising that the mouse has been holding the reins all along. But Sinister didn't see it. Or at least, he didn't think it funny if he did.

"I need Ororo Munroe," he continued. "Or a limb if she gives you a lot of trouble. I'd like the rest alive if possible. That beautiful piece of technology you're carrying can make sure it reaches me in time to be viable. This comes first, then you can go and get your revenge on your puppet master."

"Why would I work for you?" Victor snarled, itching for some retaliation against the man who had turned him into a submissive pet, and more than willing to take it out on another man who had held his leash in the past.

"Why don't you have some fun while you're there. On me." Sinister smiled grimly. "You know, working with me can be rewarding, Sabretooth. You've been caged for too long to miss out on this opportunity." Sinister opened a portal, turning his back on Victor. "This will take you straight onto the X-mansion's grounds. Use your little bracelet to get into the house, and then it is programmed to bring you to me with whatever load you might be carrying."

Victor Creed smiled slowly, stretching his claws convulsively. "Anyone but the storm-bringer's fair game?" he checked.

"Go wild." Sinister replied. Sabretooth threw himself into the portal. Go wild? He grinned viciously as he was whisked through space. That he could do.


	17. Chapter 17 mild

Chapter 17

- ,.,-

Jean-Paul Beaubier was not a man who had ever thought that teaching would be his final destination in life. He had been an X-man before, in between his stints with Alpha Flight, and had come back to the realisation that, while Alpha Flight gave him the feeling of patriotism and sense of place that the American team never would, he had never felt more alive than when arguing his own and his country's political stance amongst such varied individuals.

He was always set to be a bit of an activist, he was realising. His early violent terrorist career was merely the teenaged flailing of the more rounded adult opinions he had now - opinions he had learned to argue in a clear and concise manner, in two languages, no weapons involved.

When he had been offered the chance to teach politics and French to a couple of hundred teenaged American mutants, his own career aspirations were suddenly nothing. The opportunity to sharpen his wit and debating skills against such minds as Hank McCoy and Charles Xavier was hardly to be snubbed, either.

Thus it was frustrating to find himself, on his second week in the Xavier mansion, sitting in the security hub, watching video screens of the mansion grounds.

The computers - ridiculously complex - did most of the real watching and, even in daylight, would probably spot an intruder before their human counterpart. Instead, Jean-Paul found himself flicking through the internal cameras. There wasn't much to see; all the workmen home for the weekend. Bobby and Ororo were eating breakfast in the kitchen, LeBeau was still unconscious in the medical lab after his collapse the day before. That had been the most excitement the mansion had seen since the man tried to kill himself in the danger room a couple of days previous.

Jean-Paul still swore to himself, however unlikely Dr. McCoy thought it was, that when he'd found Remy at the bottom of the stairs, gripping the banister like it was the only thing holding him up, the eyes he had watched roll back in his head had red pupils.

-,., -

Ororo was one to rise early and sleep with the disappearance of the sun. She used the quiet early morning for meditation so that she could have the whole day to give to whoever needed her most. On a quiet day when the mansion was mostly empty, she loved to slow everything she did to a pace that felt more at one with nature. Nature was never hurried.

This morning she had risen and checked on Remy in the medical lab before meditating, and then checked on him again before Jean had left for orientation and the first day of lectures at the university with Kurt, Betsy and Warren. Taking on a teacher training course on top of all their other responsibilities would be a push for the X-men, but something within Ororo relished learning how to nurture young minds like she nurtured her plants. The whole mansion had emptied save for herself and her brother, Jean-Paul in the security office and Bobby, who had slept long into the afternoon. Bobby had definitely found the slow movement of nature more to his pace.

When she wandered into the kitchen for a glass of iced tea that afternoon, she found him only just emerged, taking breakfast. She sat at the table with her glass and took in his rumpled appearance. It seemed the night had not treated him well, and he looked tired despite the hour. He smiled weakly and Ororo sat silent, knowing nature's peace had a soothing effect that no voice could replace.

When he had finished his breakfast, and looked ready to leave, Ororo placed one hand on his shoulder, thinking he might talk to her given the opportunity and the opening.

Bobby looked up from his empty bowl, startled by Ororo's touch. He'd felt like he might fall back asleep in his Cheerios in the soft friendly silence that Ororo always managed to nurture when she was nearby. It wasn't encouraging him to get to work for the day. His orientation for the student teacher course was the following day, and he still felt completely out of his depth with the material.

He realised he had been waiting for Ororo to say something, and she was waiting for him to do the same so he chuckled uncomfortably, stepping out from under her hand and picking up his bowl.

Ororo cleared her throat as he walked over to the sink to deposit the dirty dishes. "Robert. I hope you don't mind me asking, but you have been unsettled of late." she said softly.

Bobby looked over at Ororo, and wondered briefly how the ice on his chest could feel so heavy.

"It's kinda… hard for me to talk about." he mumbled eventually, into the comforting silence Ororo had left open for him, as he tried very hard not to rub at the edges of that patch of ice.

"Then just know that we are here, should you have any need to talk." Ororo offered gently, stepping out into the hallway.

Bobby knew that Ororo was one of the few people who could say that and honestly mean it. No matter what else was going on, she would always have time for anyone who needed it.

Bobby bit his lip, following Ororo. It wasn't as if this was going to stay under wraps for long - not now that Hank had said for sure. He would be the ice-man soon. Long-term. Cold and untouchable.

"Hank says I'm coming into my secondary mutation." he said, staring hard at the floor as they walked together, but still seeing Ororo's expression out of the corner of his eye and wishing it didn't look like pity. "I'm going to ice up all the way, and I might not be able to go back."

"I'm sorry, Robert. I know it was something you feared might happen." Ororo offered, reaching out again to touch his shoulder.

"Thought I'd gotten away with it." Bobby grimaced. "I don't want to make a big deal of it. Everything in this house right now seems to blow up into a big…" he pulled a face, his metaphors and similes all tangled up, finished with; "Molehill?" He chuckled at the lame attempt at a joke.

Ororo laughed, softly. "I understand what you mean." she nodded. "I would advise talking to everyone individually, as you have done with me. That way the pressure on you is less."

"Yeah. Might be easier said, but hey - I've got time before it's visible at least." he flinched at his own self-pitying tone and cleared his throat. "How's Remy? Has Hank worked out what's wrong with him yet?"

"He was still unconscious when I checked on him last." Ororo replied with a frown. "Henry is inclined to think that it may be stress, as with these headaches he has been suffering. He has simply to sleep off the medication that Henry has administered and wake naturally." she cleared her throat. "Do you know what time Bishop is due to arrive?" Ororo asked lightly, following the change of direction to hide her own concern over Remy's condition.

"He lands about an hour before Hank gets back." Bobby followed smoothly. "I think Scott was saying he and Logan would bring them both back once they're done playing serious games out in the woods."

Ororo smiled warmly. Bobby's tendency to call Scott and Logan's regular cat-and-mouse hunt through the wilderness of outer New York State a 'game' had lead to Scott's declaration that it was 'much more serious than that'. Which had simply lead to a 'serious' tag on the name.

"I was going to spend this afternoon relearning math." Bobby continued, glancing up the stairs to his room where a pile of text books lurked in wait. "How is it that I've known this stuff forever and yet if you ask me to teach it I'm a nervous wreck?"

"I am planning to spend my afternoon in the greenhouse. You have a few hours before anyone returns, perhaps you could bring your books and study with me while I work?" she offered.

"Thanks, but I think I'm going to take advantage of the house being empty. Y'know, put some music on loud, eat some junk food, act like a teenager. Really get into this studying shiz." Bobby grinned self-deprecatingly, remembering his degree years.

Ororo smiled affectionately. "Then I will leave you to do that."

-,., -

Remy came to consciousness with only a soft throb behind his eyes and a fuzzy feeling at the back of his throat which suggested that he might have had some chemical help putting that headache down. His head was clear as he sat up, already half aware but confirming his presence in the medical lab as his hand knocked against the raised bar on the side of the bed.

He made a pointed decision not to seek through the space for Hank's heat or movement. Instead he waited a handful of minutes for any sound of the huge blue mutant before peeling the tape off the needle in his right forearm. He pulled the IV out slowly, pressing his thumb against the puncture site when the needle came free. He waited a couple of seconds more before daring to hope he might be home free, still no sound of Hank. He dropped the rail quietly and slid off the bed to his feet. The residual drugs in his system were throwing his coordination all to shit, but the adrenaline was already starting to take over.

Nothing like a good escape to wake you up in the morning.

He didn't know which bed he was in, and the temptation to throw his kinetic sense out and find the doorway - to see if Matt's idea worked the way they both believed it would if Remy could only find the focus - was almost tempting enough to outweigh the potential headache. Almost, because he didn't remember how he'd ended up in the medical lab, and the last thing he remembered was leaving the school's office with the kind of headache that made him want to gouge his eyes out just to release the pressure in them. He could only assume that the concentration the night before had lead to a headache that had laid him out. And that night had ended so well.

He could only assume he was into the evening, maybe even the night, if he'd slept off the headache and whatever the doc had given him. If he was careful, he should be able to get back to his own room and his own bed without Hank realising he was gone. If he was lucky, Logan would be there when he got inside.

He forced himself to shake off that thought for the minute, and stepped away from the support of the bed at his back, towards Hank's office. He would either come across one of the beds, or the door to Hank's office. His empty hands clutched at air as he stepped across the room, longing for his cane. It had been in his coat pocket this morning, but he wasn't going to spend time looking for either when Hank could be back at any moment. He came suddenly with a clatter against Hank's half-opened office door, which swung inwards, nearly spilling him across the floor. Remy paused awkwardly in the doorway as he caught his balance, searching for a flippant comment, but Hank wasn't inside.

Using the doorway to reorient himself, Remy headed out of the medical lab and for the lift at a jog. He was out of there, he wasn't going to wait around to get found out.

-,., -

Jean-Paul watched on the security screen as Gambit shuffled unstably across the room, found the office door and started for the exit. Not for the first time, he found himself with a weight in his stomach at the change in the man, once so graceful, movements honed to perfection by constant athletic training not so dissimilar to his own. Now without guidance in an unfamiliar space he tripped and stumbled over every little obstacle, steps made hesitant by his own uncertainty.

He reached out to the comms unit to inform Ororo that her adoptive brother was making his escape, to ask her to intercept him and make sure he was alright. Before his hand reached the button, the proximity alarm went off. A clatter of keys changed the screen to an image of the mansion perimeter, P-sector. A visible distortion was building there, a readout being processed on the next screen across blared: "Energy signature identified: Portal, Dimensional Conduit, Sinister."

Jean-Paul hit the intruder alarm, trusting Remy to follow the protocol they had put in place. He glanced over at the screen of P-sector again as he went to call everyone back to the mansion. His hand paused over the button as Victor Creed stepped through the rift and promptly disappeared from sight.

"What the…" Biting back the curse, Jean-Paul slammed his hand down on the 'return to base' emergency signal, effectively transmitting it to everyone who wasn't already in the mansion.

Glancing across the screens, and seeing Creed already marching away from Bobby's still form, Jean-Paul sped into the corridor. His power and Ororo's were primarily defensive, but they had to keep Creed contained until the others got back.

-,., -

Ororo was working in the greenhouse, the huge space cramped with plants on every work surface as she bedded down the gardens for winter. The expansive glass building, attached to the back of the mansion by one wall, was well heated and placed to make the most of the late season light. She was just settling into the calm routine of the work, taking cuttings and potting up to give the tiny propagating plants the best chance for spring, when the intruder alarm blared.

She immediately thought of Remy, unconscious in the medical lab, and turned to race back into the mansion proper. She was barely to the end of the row when she spotted Victor Creed looming in the doorway of her treasured sanctuary.

She immediately raised a furious wind, hearing the window behind her shatter as it broke through the outer door and threw the violent mutant out into the hall. She couldn't spare the moment to look at the damage the winds were causing to all her hard work as she grabbed a rake and a pair of shears as weapons in the enclosed space, and followed the gusting wind through to the main hall.

If she could get Sabretooth to follow her outside she would have all of nature's elements at her disposal. Until then, she could only hope that Bobby would hear the alarm and help her restrain the intruder until one of the others returned.

With no hesitation, as soon as Sabretooth was in sight and still struggling to brace against the buffeting winds, Ororo put her full force behind a solid blow with the rake handle to his head, knocking him down long enough to run past and into the kitchen, towards the patio doors.

As she dove into the kitchen with her attentions still on the groaning mutant she had left behind her, Ororo stumbled and sprawled over a slim body on the floor. She glanced back as she climbed to her feet, hearing Sabretooth already on his feet and moving. Jean-Paul was splayed, limp and inelegant, across the kitchen floor. He was bleeding heavily from a wide gash that dragged down from his middle back around to the tip of his hip, but she didn't have time to try and stop the bleeding. He had obviously put up a fight – the kitchen table in splinters and the patio door glass all over the floor inside and out.

Even as Sabretooth appeared in the doorway, Ororo leapt for the glass-less door, calling the clouds to bring down hail and lightening for her protection. Just a moment too late as a viciously clawed hand closed around her ankle and slammed her into the ground along with the glass.

-,., -

Remy froze in the long corridor as the intruder alarm blared, stumbling to a stop. There were emergency protocols in place for this moment, a route which he had memorised and run tens of times over, proving he could do it with his cane and without. Proving that he wasn't a liability if the mansion was attacked.

It made something crawl under his skin every time an exception was written into a protocol for him, or he had to prove he could do something well enough for it to work in an emergency. It was necessary, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

He turned towards the emergency escape tunnel, away from the stairs up into the mansion. He would have to pass the changing rooms and the hangar bay. He started to visualise the path, working out where he would join the practised route from the corridor he was in.

He was halfway to the Blackbird hangar bay before he heard it, the first roll of distant thunder. The sound was muffled by the depth of the mansion's hidden heart and the constant drone of the intruder alarm, but Remy had no doubt it was his Stormy bringing down the wrath of the sky.

Without missing a beat, he slipped down a different corridor. His fingers trailed along the wall, not counting his steps - he didn't know this area well enough for it to do him any good. His footsteps were hesitant, longing for his cane again. It surprised him how quickly he'd come to rely on it. How reassuring it was to have some kind of guide in the dark. He stopped when his fingers found the raised marks in the wall - an X and the code name engraved underneath. Each one concealed a sliding drawer with a uniform inside - the emergency supply if there wasn't time to change. Grab a uniform, jump on the jet.

He didn't have to think to find his own uniform, muscle memory brought him to the right one, tracing fingertips so briefly over his codename, and he threw open the drawer, pulling out a coat and staff. The coat pockets would already be loaded with cards and he threw it on, slapping his hand back against the wall clumsily as he stumbled down the hall and ducked into the nearest lift.

-,., -

Ororo was trapped by the house. If she could just get Creed outside, she could cut loose, fry the feral animal that had invaded her home. Inside she had only the tools available to her and her own frail body's defence.

There was blood trailing down her leg and her arm, glass shards still in broken skin where she hadn't had time to remove them. Jean-Paul was in the kitchen, bleeding on the cold tiles. Bobby had still not made an appearance. Ororo had to believe they were both fine, safe at least for as long as she could distract Sabretooth, because right now all she could do to help them was keep herself alive until the rest of the X-men arrived.

She didn't know where Remy was, and the thought of him lying in his own pool of blood somewhere in the mansion drove her faster as she sprinted down the hall.

-,., -

The moment the emergency call had gone out, chiming on Scott's and Logan's communicators simultaneously as they chased through the forest, everything had entered a state of tightly restrained panic. An emergency call didn't go out for just anything. An emergency call meant there wasn't even a second to spare to tell the backup what they faced upon arrival. An emergency call generally meant injuries and serious property damage at home.

Scott breathed a sigh of relief as his communicator clicked over and Hank's harried voice acknowledged him on the other end. "Hank, how far out are you?"

"I have exited the conference and arranged passage on an earlier flight." Hank replied succinctly. "I will be landing in New York in twenty minutes. Go on ahead to the mansion, I will follow as soon as I am able." Hank disconnected, message delivered.

"Scott." Xavier's voice, projected across several hundred miles, still made Scott jump.

"Yes Professor." Scott replied, glancing over at Logan as the feral mutant's hands tightened around the steering wheel and he dragged the jeep around a tight bend, only just holding the road.

"What's the situation?" he demanded. "The earliest chartered flight I can get out of Geneva is midday, it will be several hours before I reach the mansion."

"We're not back yet. Storm, Iceman, Northstar and Gambit were all in the house, there's been no follow up to the call, and no one is picking up there. Hank's still an hour away at best."

"I'll get the flight." Xavier said, and Scott could picture the sharp nod that came with his expression.

"Wolverine and I will be at the mansion in less than five minutes. I'll get you a . when it stabilises." Scott felt the Professor disconnect, and turned his attention back to Logan.

"Jean and Nightcrawler were at the university with Angel and Psylocke. Assuming Kurt teleports back, he'll probably arrive at about the same time as us or possibly a little before. The others will take at least twenty minutes more to drive it."

"The protocol says Gambit should head straight for the safehouse." Logan growled, tension dragging his voice to a lower timbre.

"I'm going to send Angel to the safe house. We'll assume Gambit got out of the mansion for now, if they can meet up and get a message back to us, we might have a better idea of what's going on." Gritting his teeth as Scott made the call, Logan accelerated towards the mansion and whatever would meet them there.

-,., -

Gambit faced down Sabretooth with a bo staff and a spread of cards. He knew there was no way he could win this, all he had to do was keep him distracted and away from Storm long enough for anyone else to get back to the mansion from wherever the fuck they were. He was trying not to focus on the reassuring flutter of movement that was Ororo's breathing. He had more pressing matters to deal with.

"So, Punk." Sabretooth's voice was a familiar growl, and brought the hair on the back of Gambit's neck to attention. "Word on the street was these X-morons had finally done you in."

"Guess dis Cajun not so easy t' kill." Remy replied flatly.

"Lookin' a little more battered than usual. Ya know how much I hate ta fight with frails."

"Gambit got y' covered, chaton." he shot back, extending the bo staff sharply.

The first blow came suddenly and from the side and Remy deflected it easily with the bo, flinging a first volley of cards to take Sabretooth's knees, pulling no punches. The bigger man jumped as the glowing missiles exploded, landing behind Remy and dodging the hasty kick aimed his way. He caught hold of the hand that swung towards him and pulled it up around Remy's back, locking it high behind him painfully.

"Yer not normally so sloppy, kid. What's got inta you?" He tossed the Cajun to the floor in disgust, sneering down at him. It was a beat later that he realised Remy had left a card behind, stuck to his chest.

His curse was muffled by the explosion. Remy wished he could see the damage, but knew the reprieve wouldn't last long and turned to find Ororo. He scrambled through the house, fixing distances in his mind and fighting not to lose them in the panic that was setting in. He came across a cabinet a beat too soon and bowled into it, feeling the corner collide with his cheek before his own momentum threw him off to the side and into the other room, hot blood dripping on his hands. Adrenaline kept him upright as he hurried to Storm's side.

"Come on, Stormy. I need you up!" he told her, searching quickly for any injuries that might mean she couldn't be moved. Remy hissed when he found Ororo's face was tacky with blood. He had no way of judging if she had a head injury, no idea how he could check her back or neck.

Resigning himself to the idea that if he didn't move her there was a good chance she'd end up dead regardless, he lifted her into his arms. He crossed the hall more slowly this time, hearing Creed stirring behind him and fighting the urge to rush with such a precious burden. He deposited Storm in Xavier's office, concealed behind the Professor's desk, and headed back out into the hall with a handful of cards at the ready.

Remy managed to get to the kitchen door before Creed was back on his feet – he could make it look like Ororo was inside if he made enough of a show of defending it – and held his breath as the feral mutant stood up with a snarl. There was a moment's hesitation, leaving Remy's anxiety to sky-rocket, before Sabretooth started stalking forwards. The huge feral mutant dodged a series of cards and Remy extended the bo, knowing he wouldn't have time to reach for another handful. Sabretooth stopped just out of reach of the staff.

"What did they do to yer eyes?" With a start, Remy realised Sabretooth was examining his black-on-black eyes from a safe distance. "You can't see, can ya? That's why yer fighting's so off."

"Still managed to put you down." he growled in response, hating how vulnerable he suddenly felt.

"It's that sense that Sinister used ta make you play with, ain't it?" Creed stepped to one side, still out of reach of the staff, but not giving Remy enough time to pull another volley of cards from anywhere. "Do ya remember those games, Punk?" he asked, going suddenly still, fading out of Remy's sight and leaving nothing but his voice. "When he used ta blindfold ya and let me chase ya. Watchin' all his screens and his graphs. Do ya remember that last time I got ta chase ya in the dark, time I got ta rip a pretty hole in yer belly?"

Remy was suddenly breathless, like all the air had been knocked out of him. He didn't remember that. He *didn't*. The point of the bo staff came down heavily on the ground as it became the only thing holding him up, all strength going out of him.

"Bet ya the Runt would appreciate a re-enactment, what do ya say?" Creed took another step forwards and Remy couldn't find the strength to stand on his own and face him. "Didn't think you could hide his scent from me, did ya? Yer mine, understand me? I had ya first, and he ain't getting what's mine." Sabretooth kicked out at the staff, tearing it out of Remy's weakened hands and hauling him up by the front of his coat. Taking hold of him by the back of the neck, Sabretooth ripped the trenchcoat off his shoulders, claws marking skin as he did the same to his T-shirt. Taloned fingers traced across the scar that Creed had put there, years ago. Cards fell from torn pockets like falling leaves, leaving only the tattered sides of the coat clinging to his form and Remy let himself focus on the movement of the falling cards, trying to force that distance into place. Creed pulled him against his side, digging claws deep into his hip, sharp-hot pain. "They're coming, can you sense it? We're going to put on a show just for them."

-,.,-

Logan threw himself out of the jeep, only just taking time to throw it into park before abandoning it on the driveway. He could hear Scott getting out behind him, and he extended his claws immediately, scenting the air.

He couldn't help but think about the night before, when he'd come home to the mansion to be told that Remy had collapsed, seeing him there in the bed so still when the night before he'd been so full of energy. Buzzing with it, revelling in it. Boy wasn't made to be still. Looked all wrong, to thin, too pale.

It didn't matter now, he would be safe in the lab or safe in the safehouse. The lab was designed to lock down when the intruder alarm went off, only letting X-men through.

Logan froze as he caught the scent, and shot a look at Scott across the top of the car.

"Creed's here." he said, taking off at a run for the mansion.

They stormed into the hall into one of the most sickening scenes Logan had ever witnessed. Sabretooth stood in the centre as though on show. Remy was bare-chested, with his coat ripped off him and on the ground and his T-shirt torn to tatters around his shoulders. Four parallel lines were already bleeding sluggishly down his chest where the shirt had been roughly ripped off him. Creed was standing behind him, arm folded across his chest and presenting him to the door, holding him upright with four claws buried into the flesh of his hip.

He grinned slowly as Logan froze in the doorway, his own claws already outstretched.

"Aw, you're no fun." Sabretooth chuckled into Remy's ear. He let Remy drop, not withdrawing his claws, letting them rip through soft flesh as he fell, blood sudden and shockingly red against pale skin. Remy didn't make a sound as he collapsed in a heap at Creed's feet. Golden eyes flickered up to Logan, still frozen in shock in the doorway. "He used ta scream so nicely. You been training it out of him, Runt?"

Scott's optic blast took Sabretooth full in the chest and the leader of the X-men didn't stop until Creed was buried in the wall on the other side of the hall. Remy was still and silent on the ground. For a moment Logan was torn between finishing Sabretooth off once and for all and going to Remy and never letting go ever again. Scott made the decision for him, charging past with his hand still on his visor.

Logan was only peripherally aware of Scott's voice saying, "Hank, I don't care how you do it, get back here now." as he dropped to his knees beside Remy's still form.


	18. Chapter 18 mild

Chapter 18

-,., -

Logan couldn't tell how long he'd been sitting there, trying to hold Remy together with his bare hands. Scott had dragged Creed – shackled while he was still smoking and unmoving – down to the cells and returned with emergency treatment kits, handing over a series of dressings before starting a sweep of the mansion. Logan forced his sluggish hands to move over the dressings, ignoring the pooling blood on the ground. Scott jogged past him, into the kitchen and came to an abrupt stop. Logan glanced around at Scott's sharp swearword, not able to see him or whatever had inspired the comment, but Logan could see the blood seeping across the floor in the lines between the floor tiles. Logan looked away, forcing himself to focus on the bandages under his hands.

Kurt materialised in the hallway minutes later, filling the air with sulphurous stench strong enough to briefly overwhelm the smell of Remy's blood. He turned to look over at Logan and then past him at Remy stretched out on the floor. "Mein Gott." he rasped.

"Cyke found something in the kitchen," Logan said flatly, surprised at the harshness of his own voice. "Go see if he needs help."

Kurt nodded and hurried out of the hall. He paused in the doorway through to the kitchen and looked back and forth briefly from Remy to whoever was laid out there. Logan heard him mutter "Jean-Paul..." quietly before Scott took charge again.

"Nightcrawler, Storm and Iceman are still in the mansion as far as we know." he said.

"I will find them." Nightcrawler agreed immediately, teleporting away.

"Scott." Logan called through the open door. "Where the fuck is Hank?"

"He's on a helicopter, on his way in." Scott replied quickly. "We just have to hold things together here until..."

"The *thing* I'm fucking holdin' together is Remy's stomach." he shouted back. "Bet the Frenchie ain't lookin' much better."

"Hold it together Logan." Scott snapped.

Logan flinched hard, looking down at Remy's blood seeping between his fingers. He forced himself to look at Remy's face, lax in unconsciousness. A vicious bruise was blossoming around the graze still sluggishly bleeding on his cheek, and there was so much blood on his chest from the four parallel lines there, that he might as well have been wearing a shirt. Logan wanted to have another hand to wipe away the blood, to patch up the graze as if that was going to make everything better. Instead he was watching him bleed out and listening to Scott swear as Jean-Paul did the same in the other room.

He shifted as the crescendo rattle-thud of an approaching helicopter signalled the arrival of the cavalry. Kurt appeared briefly in the kitchen to report to Scott before disappearing again. The noise reached its peak as the windows on the south side of the building rattled and there was the sounds of glass shattering from Ororo's greenhouse. Hank stormed in, two Asian strangers right behind him.

Kurt teleported back into the main hall as Hank hurried to Logan's side.

"Bobby is unconscious upstairs, Storm is in the Professor's office, conscious. Neither are critical." he offered.

"Hank!" Scott shouted from the other room. "He's not breathing. Hank!"

What followed was a whirl of activity as they rushed Jean-Paul towards the hidden lift, performing CPR all the way. One of the strangers resurfaced a minute later and helped Logan get Remy onto a stretcher whilst maintaining pressure on his wound. It was a wrench to leave Remy alone with someone he didn't know, but it was more than obvious to Logan that the man knew what he was doing when they reached the lab, and Scott needed help getting Bobby onto a stretcher and down to the lab. They met Kurt and Jean coming down from the mansion with Ororo supported between them. She smiled wanly at them; pale, scraped and bruised, but on her feet just about. A deep bloody gash across her shoulder was still bleeding heavily, so Jean and Kurt bustled her straight past and into the lab. Bobby, with his injuries unapparent, had been more of an issue to transport. Treating the unknown as a spinal injury first and foremost, Scott had never been more glad of the sophisticated equipment in their private facility. As soon as they had reached the lab they were able to rule out everything but head injury, and all Bobby really needed to do was sleep it off.

Hank stepped out of the isolation room, looking harried. Four pairs of eyes were turned to him, and his attention went immediately to Ororo and Bobby.

"Bobby has a concussion," Jean stepped in immediately, taking on her role as make-shift nurse of the mansion. "Nothing worse we can see. Ororo has a bad cut on her shoulder, but she was conscious all the way down here."

Hank took a moment to compose himself before replying; "Jean-Paul is stabilised. Jean, Scott, you two are the only universal donors on site, I'm going to need blood donations."

"Of course." Jean replied for them both.

Hank nodded his thanks before addressing the whole room. "The isolation room is now officially a theatre. No one goes in without scrubs, gloves and a mask. My esteemed peers, Mr. Dimitri and Dr. Palmer." Hank gestured to short Asian man who had stepped up beside him and then the doctor who was still working on Remy in turn. "Both are surgeons and have offered their time and skills to assist in this situation."

"Believe me," Mr. Dimitri added in accented English. "The conference had become most boring. We both leapt at the opportunity to leave early."

Dr. Palmer nodded once in silent greeting and then moved to the side as Kurt came up alongside Remy's bed and released the brakes on the wheels.

"Gently," Hank reminded as he followed the bed towards the makeshift theatre. "Don't jolt him."

Kurt followed after them, and Jean pulled out two bags and sterile tubing to take blood from Scott and herself. They were all trained to a basic level in medical treatment far beyond what first aid required. At any point Hank might need the help of another pair of hands in the lab, and it could be any one of them injured. They couldn't risk having only one of them able to help out.

Logan pulled out a dressing and pressed it to the sluggishly bleeding wound in Ororo's shoulder, her eyes shut and breathing steady – unconscious again. Hank was in his line of sight, manipulating anaesthetic equipment as the two surgeons began working around the long wound that bisected Remy's stomach.

Kurt came back out of the theatre to stand in the space between Bobby's and Jean-Paul's beds, as if guarding them was the most important job right now. Jean cleaned her hands thoroughly, before taking the two new bags of blood through to Hank, and Scott started pulling medical supplies out of the cupboards around the room before checking the readouts on the monitors attached to Jean-Paul's bed and noting down the figures.

After a brief exchange with Hank, Jean walked back into the lab and took over from Logan, moving his hands carefully so that she could be sure of her control over the bleeding. She glanced quickly under the bandage, eyes narrowing.

There was a hiss of 'damnit' from Hank in the other room, followed by a reserved murmur from one of the surgeons and Jean glanced up before looking at Logan. "Pass me the suture kit and go take care of Remy." she said quietly.

Logan pulled a yellow wrapped sterile kit from the cupboard, ripping the tape off it and letting Jean take the sterile inner. He stepped away from Ororo's bed and forced himself to walk across the corridor. How was he supposed to take care of Remy when he couldn't even touch him right now? The thought made his stomach clench.

He spared Remy a glance, looked at the three faces staring down at him from behind white masks, and headed for the cells.

-,., -

Scott met the Professor's taxi at the front gate, feeling like he hadn't slept an hour of the four he'd been in bed. The Professor greeted him with a severe nod and then manoeuvred straight to his office, giving the damaged wall a brief glance as he passed. He took his place behind his desk and let Scott sit.

"Tell me." he asked.

It took Scott almost an hour to recount what they had pieced together from the security cameras and Ororo's tale of events. Bobby hadn't had any idea of what had happened, and Jean-Paul and Remy had both still been unconscious when Scott had left the lab, neither having regained consciousness that night. It was now edging on midnight, Hank had ordered the rest of the X-men out of the lab as soon as he was sure everyone under his care was stable. Not long after they had been dismissed and started on the clean-up in the mansion, Bishop had arrived from the airport.

After a moment's pause to absorb all the information, Xavier sat back in his chair. "We were lucky there were no builders in today, no workmen." he mentioned dryly.

They both looked up as Hank stepped through the door.

"Hank?" The Professor pressed immediately.

"How much have you heard already?" Hank asked, slumping into the armchair in the corner.

"Scott has talked me through what happened." Xavier replied plainly. "I'm assuming you're here to update us on your patients."

"Bobby has been released under observation for any developing head trauma issues. Ororo's condition is stable and good, she is suffering a concussion and mild lacerations, she has received seven stitches in all. If I'm happy with her progress she will be out of the lab later today." Hank glanced up at the clock on the wall before correcting – "Perhaps not until tomorrow. Jean-Paul lost a lot of blood and is receiving transfusions. The surgery to repair what internal damage that there was went well and at the moment there's no sign of further bleeding. There was no serious damage to any internal organs, but he will be in my care for three days at the minimum. His situation has been downgraded to serious." Hank hesitated, as if to make sure he'd said everything he needed to on that case. "Remy" he continued, "Was also suffering from severe bloodloss but whatever protects that boy was working today, there's no sign of internal injury despite the location of the wound. Again, I would like to keep him under observation for a minimum of three days. There is some infection risk, but he is now stable and recovering well." With a deep breath, Hank pushed himself back to his feet. "If that is all, I need to get back."

That his report was delivered steadily, with no verbal embellishment, showed perhaps more than anything else how tired Hank was.

"Thank you, Hank." Xavier acknowledged. "Please, get back to your patients." He watched Hank leave brusquely, face stern, before turning back to Scott. "I need someone else helping Warren organise the workmen. Ororo will have requests for the care of her plants, please send Jean down to take them."

"Someone needs to tell Logan." Scott added. "About Remy." he clarified.

"He will be with Creed, I would assume." Xavier pointed out blandly.

"I'll go." Scott nodded.

Xavier sat back in his chair. "What are your plans regarding Creed?" he asked.

"Truthfully? I'm happy turning a blind eye to Logan as he takes what he feels he needs to from him." Scott replied to the question.

"I'd like that to stop immediately, if for no other reason than it will be interfering with Logan's emotional recovery in this instance. When he is ready, Remy will need him calm and controlled, not still raging."

"I'm not sure..." Scott swallowed back whatever he was planning on saying. "I'll let him know." he nodded, turning to go.

"Scott." Xavier called him back. "You did well today. No casualties."

Scott smiled grimly back at him. "I wish I could say that makes me feel better, but four people in Hank's care... it doesn't feel like much of a victory Professor."

"Then count it a day survived, and lets hope tomorrow is a better one." Xavier mused, watching as Scott disappeared out of his office.

- ,., -

It was the next morning before Ororo was released from Hank's care with a sling and orders to rest. She had planned to go straight to her greenhouse to see what could be done about the damage she had caused, but had been intercepted by Kurt, with orders to send her to her room if it looked like she was even considering working.

It was in the hall on the way to her attic room that the voice called her name. "Storm?" Ororo paused in the hall and looked into Remy's darkened room. Logan was full of shadow in the dark, only half-visible. He looked pale and haggard.

"I didn't think you'd be up here." She replied, he voice muted by the dark and the mood of the mansion.

"Scott took over with Creed." Logan replied dully.

"I know. That's why I didn't think you'd be up here." A sharpness entered her tone. "Is there much of Victor left?"

There was a harsh chuckle that chilled Ororo. "I never realised how useful it is that he heals." Logan mused. "There's only so many times you can tear any other man limb from limb."

"I doubt Scott will be any more gentle." Ororo said, stepping into the doorway and looking into the darkened room. "When will you go and see Remy?" she asked. "Hank told me he regained consciousness this morning, he's doing well."

"I can't see him, Ororo." Logan said, and Ororo could see him throw his head back against the wall sharply.

"Why?" she asked, softening her tone.

"Because I'm like Creed." Logan snapped back. "I'm an animal, 'Ro, I'm impulsive and rough and I can't…"

"Stop." Ororo ordered, and he did, falling silent. "Logan, he loves you. He's put himself on the line for you." Ororo forced her tone to be even, when all she wanted to do was cry for this broken family of hers.

"Hate me." Logan demanded. "I hurt him, I made it worse and I need you to hate me. I can't stand his forgiveness."

Ororo didn't know how Logan had hurt him, or what he had made worse, but she knew this wasn't the time for it. "I will hate you for hurting him." she replied. "But you have to let him decide whether he wants you there, else he will make up his mind as to why you haven't come, and he will think all the worse of himself for it. He deserves that much from you, don't you think? All you need to do is be there for him."

- ,., -

It was nearly an hour after Ororo had passed by Remy's door when Logan finally made it down to the medical lab. He had fought with himself through every argument he could think of, but it always came down to one thing – Remy had to make this decision.

As it was he had expected to be thrown immediately from the lab, so to step through the door and be greeted by the chorus of two strong electronically monitored heartbeats was a joy. He could only see Jean-Paul, and assumed that Remy would be in the bed still in the isolation room where he had last seen him. Hank appeared even as he turned to go and find him.

"Ah! Just the man I was hoping to see." he greeted, jovial if a little worn around the edges. "I was thinking about what you said, Logan, regarding the nature of empathy. It seems like the nature of empathy is dictated by the user. Whilst Remy and Jean both feel exterior emotion and allow it to influence their own emotional state, Rogue – in her time in possession of Remy's power – had the ability to ply her emotions on others, but was only aware of other's emotions in a much diminished sense. It's introversion and extroversion as empathic states."

"That's great, Hank. Can I see him?" Logan replied bluntly, sounding completely uninspired by Hank's revelation.

"Ah, no." Hank replied apologetically. "He is in isolation until he is past infection risk."

"That's bull, Hank." Logan snapped back. "You know I ain't carrying anything."

Hank grabbed hold of Logan's arm and dragged him bodily out of the lab and into his office. "He has asked for a little time alone to deal with this event." Hank growled under his breath. "He is in *isolation*, do you understand me?"

"You can't keep me from him." Logan growled, Hank's aggressive stance twisting everything up inside of him.

"Logan, go away and calm down." Hank demanded. "Go to him angry at Sabretooth, or angry at yourself, and he will feel it aimed at him. He needs you calm right now."

With a sharp growl, Logan spun on his heel and stormed back out towards the mansion. Hank shut his eyes and collected himself. It had been a long forty-eight hours, and he took his time over recording Jean-Paul's stats and recording them before heading back into the isolation room.

Remy was laying on his side, curled around the carefully closed wound protectively. He blinked slowly and Hank cleared his throat from the doorway before stepping inside and picking up the chart to record the stats on.

"How are we feeling?" he asked blandly as Remy turned a little to face him.

"Like 'we' bin cut in half again." Remy answered, voice rough from a mixture of drugs and pain.

"Your track record recently has been less than impressive." Hank mused, his tone light. "Anyone would think you had developed a taste for this place after all."

"Hank..." Remy closed his eyes and shifted uncomfortably. "What happened?"

"Sabretooth attacked the mansion, and you took it upon yourself to fight him." Hank answered, immediately concerned. "Do you remember?"

"No, jus'... Remy woke up here, Henri." Remy paused. "Had a headache, bad one... next t'ing he knows..."

"Ah, you mean prior to the arrival of Mr. Creed?" Hank realised. "You collapsed, ostensibly following your over exertion the night before. Logan explained that you had been stretching your powers."

"Gotta try new t'ings, Henri." Remy managed a weak smile.

"Quite." Hank went quiet for a second, obviously considering something. "Remy," he continued eventually, putting aside the chart. "I didn't have a chance to talk to you about this before, but when we found you, your pupils were quite distinctly red. By the time we had reached the lab they had returned to the black state we have become more used to, but..." Hank paused, seeing the sudden pallor of Remy's skin.

"What does dat mean, Henri?" he asked, breathless.

"Loath am I to admit my knowledge lacking," Hank replied, "But I cannot answer you. I assume you knew nothing different? No stronger definition between dark and light, perhaps?"

"Was work t' stay upright, Henri, wasn' t'inkin' 'bout de scenery." Remy explained.

"Yes, well. You were lucky you cleared the stairs. Had you collapsed during your decent, I dread to think of the consequences." the doctor mused.

"Henri..." With a visible effort, Remy gathered himself. "Y' t'ink dis... y' t'ink I could get m' sight back?" he asked haltingly.

"I think we can only take this as an expedient opportunity to determine the nature of your blindness." Hank replied firmly. "Right now all we have is the knowledge that not everything is as we have previously thought."

-,., -

Scott and Kurt were still trying to patch and replaster the damaged wall in the hallway when there was a knock at the front door. With no one expected, they were both immediately on guard as Kurt moved to conceal himself in the kitchen and Scott moved to open the door.

Behind it was stood a middle aged man with round glasses and non-descript brown hair. Scott narrowed his eyes.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"I am Mitchell Canford." the man replied in an accentless voice. "I am under the impression you are holding a member of my staff unlawfully."


End file.
